I have bought a Kodak ESP 3 AIO printer two weeks ago. The PROS are that the ink is cheap. $9.95 for Black and $14.94 for color. Or you can purchase a combo pack for $24.95. THe retail price of the printer was $89.95 and it came with one Black and one Color cartridge. NO cable though. What I like best is that the Print Head is replaceable. I got burned by EPSON a few years ago. Their Print Head only lasted 2 years. After that time I could not print and received a message on screen to send my printer back to Epson for “part replacement”? CON is that ink is so cheap because they push the Easy Share Gallery, that menas that every time you power up the printer the Kodak Easy Share software starts up. I have NOT been able to find anything in preferences or startup to get around this??? Bottom line is, I am glad I bought Kodak and I love the cheap, EXCELLENT ink they provide me with.

1st generation Kodak inkjet printers (white/cream colored printers) have had tech problems. The new black ESP models appear to have fewer moving parts, so they’ll likely do better. I’ve been very happy with print quality and ink costs. Less happy with the failure of print-heads that were supposed to be “perminent.” As for the software: must be a preferrences issue, because starting my Kodak printer doesn’t automatically launch EasyShare software (I’ve removed ES from my startup folder, I don’t find it as useful as Picasa).

I bought a Kodak ESP3 printer a week aga at Walmart. I installed the software on a Sony Vista 32 computer and he worked fine. I also have a network installed with 3 computers , the host with the Kodak printer is sharing the printer with an Windows XP computer and also worked as i expected. Now my problem with the third computer on my network, a Dell computer with Windows Vista 64 installed. It is impossible to get the printer working, at first i got a error saying there was the wrong driver installed on the host computer (The Sony). Thre is no separate driver available for this printer, only a programm named AIO_install,exe.. The other error i got was “Printer is not connected to the nettwor”or the is failt spelled”. I uninstalled and reinstalled the software advised by a Kodak employee but notting will work. So if you have a network with a Vista 64 system installed, stay away of this printer. Kodak has to develop a new working driver even for a Windows 64 system.

I Bought a Kodak ESP-3 printer from staples like a lot of
people to take advantage of the cheap ink. I also own an Hp
all in one and so I can get some sort of comparison between the two. I find the pictures you print usually look better on the HP
printer as the Kodak produces very dark pictures that even in
high quality mode on photo paper look somewhat grainy. The Kodak also seems limited in its color pallet no mate how colorful the picture is . The scanner seems to work fine and does a good job overall of scanning text & pictures. One thing I like about the scanning software is that you can scan a batch of
stuff in and it will save it in a lower box on the screen and then once you are done you can select all of the scans and send them to a particular folder of your choosing. This can not be done on my HP as it requires you to select a folder for each individual scan which can be quite a pain when you have a lot of work you are trying to scan. One of the problems I have found with the Kodak software is that you have to run your screen resolution at a certain setting in order for you to see it’s full interface without having to use
the scroll bars on the side and bottom of the program. I find this to be quite a pain as I like to have my icons display fairly large on my screen because I don’t have the best vision and
have some light sensitivity issues. On my 22inch monitor
the Kodak start interface is only a box about 4by4 inches which I find to be quite small and a poor use of my monitor.
I have had no technical trouble yet with this printer but have only owned it for a few months. I personally don’t find the ink
lasts much longer than the HP and seems to print at about the same speed. Overall not to bad a printer for quick jobs
that don’t have to be perfect. If you need really good photo
quality on a regular basis though, I would go with another printer, perhaps a Cannon or HP photo printer.
That’s just my opinion so far . Hopefully they will get better in the future, only time will tell . I hope this will help someone in their shopping expeditions for a new printer.
Thanks for reading my blurp and every one take care.
Mike.

I have recently purchased the ESP 3 printer and find that the scanning of photos and documents is EXCELLENT if you either know how to manually adjust the settings, OR simply tell the Kodak software to use its improvement mode. The printing of photos and documents is definitely better than any of the other brands that I have seen or tried. I used to use Brother, HP and Lexmark. Of those Lexmark did the best scanning, I was disappointed with the photo printing on the Brother and HP, but the Kodak seems AWESOME on anything that I have printed. My sister has either the 5500 or 5700 and the only issue they have had is with getting the faxing work on a phone line with an answering machine. The actual scanning, copying and printing seems to be above anything else we have tried in the same price range for the actual printer. The cheaper ink is just a very welcome added bonus.

I purchased a Koday ESP-7 printer in January 2009 as a Christmas gift for my wife but with the Kodak advertising, there just weren’t any available.

Setup was easy and the noise the machine makes was surprising but print was good. An 8X10 on kodak premium paper looked great. Then the machine started to spit out blank pages. Tech support assisted with getting the machine going again. BUT….if you leave the printer alone for at least 2 days, it will not print, just gives you pretty white blank sheets.

Tech support sent me a new print head and that resolved the problem for about 5 days. Then the blank page disease reappeared again. This time tech support sent me a new print head and a replacement printer. Great. Worked almost a week before the disease struck. Kodak knows they have a problem with these ESP printers but have done nothing about it so far. At present I am demanding a refund on monies spent on the purchase of the printer less money wasted in buying ink. Overall, buying an HP and paying out the nose for ink would have actually cheaper and less nerve racking.

I own a Kodak ESP 3. It hasn’t failed on me as of yet. I’ve owned it for a few months now. The only cons to the printer are that it’s kind of loud, and sometimes it grabs more than one sheet of paper. This only happens when using heavier weight papers and you have to feed them in one at a time. I don’t do much printing, but other than that it’s been pretty reliable.

I bought an ESP 9..To put it bluntly it is a nighmare! Out of the box the printer found my Wifi network and once the wep was in it was happy.or so I thought..Printed a test page only got pink and washed out black…. printing screen shots on plain paper.Did all the maintenance user can changed inks still the same thing.left it at that and installed the software..on both laptop and desktop.Adjusted the firewall settings to allow what I should.Still nothing… so I added the rpinter manually made the added on printer the default could print from desk but not laptop.opened up the software and tried to scan..got error code that could not be resolved on line support or with phone support…also would not print form software because the software still could not find the printer.Kodak is well aware that there are huge problems with some hookups and when finally after 3 whole days of loading unloading claenaing restarting whil on the phone with support they passed me on tothe senior assistance team who told me that to completley uninstall and clean again and download the new software when it came out on May 15.. I did that.. had to find and install printer and scanner drivers which were in the software this time but did not install( the original software did not have a scanner driver in it???)On Tuesday I will try yet aqgain with phone support to get this thing going. What a crock! I am no neophyte at this I have been in both software and hardware for over 30 years.My desktop is a Sony P4 3.2 with 4G Ram and XP pro
laptop is a panasonic 1.6 centrino with 1.5 G Ram and XP Pro
Wifi Network is Siemens Router D-link adapter on desktop and Intel wireless in Panasonic…Also tried a D-Link router same results. Would I buy Kodak again? not a chance in He!! would I recommend it ? ditto

I worked as a Kodak Technician for almost two years until they (KODAK) decided to turn the outsourcing over to the Philippines or where ever. The bottom line is: do not fall for their bull!!!! They are ripping the entire country(ies) off. I wanted to tell all that were calling in to take the printer back immediately but we were being randomly recorded so I couldn’t. Now, I am not affiliated with them because they pulled the contract from Sykes (stateside) and gave it to Sykes in the Philippines or somewhere else. After that they closed down the branch office I was working in and shorted us our pay on hours for cleaning up the facility; thus, here I am to inform the people of America/Canada that they are in fact ripping you all off! Low cost ink is infact cheaper, but it is also becoming of lower quality damaging the printheads. We will talk more about the printheads later… The ink is lower costing but the you will end up paying the same amount (if not more) attempting to get the printer to work via troubleshooting (Printhead Cleaning) etc,…

Now the printheads… If anyone but the Engineer noticed that when a new(refirbished) printhead is sent to you, the part number is exactly the same???!!! Thus the lie that they feed you about a newly designed printhead will solve your problem is just another lie. If you noticed…. you can take the printhead out of an 5300 AIO Printer and put the same printhead in the ESP Series; why? It is the same defective (refirbished) printhead from the old line of printers!!!! Try it! If you know someone that bought a new model of Kodak ESP AIO Printer; take your 5000 series printhead and see if it fits in the ESP Printer…..guess what….it will! Now, the printhead is also covered under the warranty;….however the warranty will only last for one calendar year. When the year is up you will have to purchase a printhead to make your printer continue to function “To save you on ink cartridge costs” correct? Guess what the price is on the new printhead…..as of 02/2008 it was listed at arround $80.00! Of course the sales pitch is that it comes with a complimentary (you guessed it) set of ink cartridges!!!! More consumer tips to come!

Viper

Problem printing with networked Kodak ESP3 on vista 64 solution here:

http://www.fixya.com/support/t1583059-wireless_laptop_cannot_connect_network

I bought an ESP3 in Oct of 2008 at Walmart and had to go through 3 printers before I got one to work properly. The software wouldn’t download completely and that should have been my warning to steer clear.

After 2 months the printer would only print one page at a time and have to be shut down. I called Kodak Support and spent an hour trying to get the bugs worked out and they came to the conclusion the printer was defective and sent me a refurbished one.

During the hour long session I also had to remove microsoft framework .net 3.0 and 3.5 and go back to microsoft and get 2.0 re-installed on my computer as a repair for the printer. There was an incompatibility between Kodak software and MS upgrades for framework .net.

I got the replacement printer working and in Apr 2009, the same thing happened again. Kodak support said that I would have to remove .net 3.0 and 3.5 again. I had already removed the Kodak printer and bought a canon printer which is working great so far.

I called Tech Support and wanted a refund on the Kodak printer and they said I would just have to use it, because they wouldn’t give a refund on the unit as it was out of the warranty window.

I told them that it isn’t my fault that Kodak software isn’t compatible with MS software and that MS sends out patches and upgrades to combat viruses and exploitation of their systems to keep my computer safer, just as Kodak sends out upgrades of their systems to make them run better. They told me they were sorry and that they could do nothing for me.

I sent a letter to Kodak Corporate in April 2009 seeking a refund and have not heard from them as of yet. Kodak doesn’t seem to care about the customer and their product doesn’t work well with other software that is necessary for computer safety.

I will not purchase another Kodak printer. The product is defective and they will not stand behind it.

I just bought and tried to install a Kodak ESP 3 pribter, can’t get past the startup disc, and won’t connect to the website for a driver. And my system had=s just been completely upgraded, so no problems there.Problem is, I’m a designer on a deadline, and my last printer just died, so I’ll have to take this back I guess, and spend a little more money on something that will at least install!

So many printers don’t support XP 64bit. I bought a HP all in one
1410v because it had a sticker on the side that said it supported XP 64 bit. Only to find no such driver on the disk and only a beta on the HP site. Now HP has removed that driver, and say my printer never supported XP 64bit. I checked another newer HP printer that said it supported XP 64bit. But on the download site, all it offers is a (work around). So HP offers terrible driver support, just like it seems Kodak does. I’ll never buy HP again. They all rip u off for ink. Which is very cheap. Printers could easily have refillable reservoirs. Still looking for the right all in one printer.

I bought a Kodal All-In-One Injet printer and in less than one year , Kodak replaced two printheads, free but after the first year was over and less than two years old the printer needs to be replaced according to Kodak, I think they should have sent me a new printer free of charge with all the problems I”ve had, I find it hard to recommend a Kodak product since mine didn’t last two years and I really only used it to make pictures and occasionally I had to print . Yes the cost of ink is cheaper than all the others and it uses less which is a good thing. I’m retired and really can’t afford to purchase a new printer every two years and if the quality was good I shouldn’t have too.

I got a Kodak ESP 3 for Christmas; I’m 73 years old & have been using PCs since the CPM days, but I’m not too sharp in the brain anymore. This thing sure uses up a whole bunch more ink than my old HP; thank goodness its cheap – I just wish I could do home-office Refills like I did before I got this gadget. Right now my biggest problem is I can’t figure out how to scan stuff into MS WORD. I dread calling Kodak since I don’t hear well enough to understand the Rag-Heads on the other end of the line. Anyone out there know how its done ???

I owned a Kodak printer for 14 hours and that was 14 hours too long. Took it back for full refund. It would only print in pink and black. The paper pick up was faulty. With only 6 prints the ink volune indicated a drop of around 20%. With the colour head if one colour runs our the machine will not word. If you black cartridge runs out it disables the machine unlike my HP which will still do scans with both cartriges empty. I think if you set out to design a bad printer it would not be as bad as a Kodak.

I have had four kodak ESP7 printers fail in six months.
with no luck from kodak on reason or help fixing problem.
so back to my old HP’sand Epsons.
I personaly could not tell a reduction in ink usage although it was a little cheaper to buy.
i did not print many pictures(did not like the ones i did print).
actualy i did not think kodak printer was very good printing anything!

Sorry to keep flogging this dead horse, but if I can help steer 1 person away from a Kodak printer, it’s worth it.

I’ve had pretty much nothing but problems with my Kodak 5500 AiO. They are sending me my 3rd print head as of today. I used it for almost a year with the original printhead that stopped printing yellow after about 4 months. Second printhead will not recognize new color ink cartriges. We’ll see about the 3rd. I wish I could afford a new printer, and I would recommend not buying ANY Kodak printer.

I purchased kodak esp3 at walmart.Have had for about 6 months.Already replaced ink cartridges three times.And have not printed out alot of pictures or documents.Quality of pictures is terrible.They come out red.Even on documents it’s not right.It pulls in more than 1 sheet of paper to print.Wireless doesnt work right,says it wasn’t instaleld correctly.Have reinstalled,same story.I am going to put my old hp back up.At least my pictures were right,just used alot of ink.But not as much as this one,just trying to get it to work.Commercial for Kodak is crap,one big lie.HP or any of them for that matter is better than Kodak.Will never own another one.Very dissatisfied with product.

I saw all the commercials and had to try it.
Got the ESP-7

Quality of print = poor
Noise = VERY loud!
Gear jams when power fails.
Goes thru some ink!
You have to clean print heads almost every day.
NEVER again would I buy a Kodak printer…

I wish I would have read these reviews before buying this stupid printer. I keep getting all kinds of problems with it. I do have a waranty but I wonder if they will honor it?

We bought our Kodak 5300 AOI in June 2008. We do not print heavily, but I enjoy printing pictures when I want to and we use the copy feature often. In a little over a year, I’ve had to replace the print head 2 times. It seems like every time I want to print pictures, there’s something wrong with the print head. We were sold on the price of the ink also, but it seems to use a lot of ink. And just yesterday, I called tech support again about my printing problems and they told me I need yet another print head and a new printer. And to TOP this off, they say my printer is no longer under warranty. So I’m SOL. They will sell me a new Kodak printer at 30% off! WHY WOULD I WANT ANOTHER KODAK after my issues and after reading about all of these???

I have owned both the Kodak 5300 and the ESP 9 over the last three years. I have not had any print head problems or any issues a firmware update or printer driver did not fix. I see that Best Buy has a promotion this week if you turn-in your old printer you get $50.00 off a new printer. I told my brother about the new ESP 5250 printer, it has wireless now for a lower cost.

With the sale at Best Buy and the $50.00 printer trade-in it bring the wireless printer down to $84.88, so with the cheap ink, it will be payed for in 9 months of operation.

I love my Kodak printers, my dad is still using the old white kodak that I gave him when i got my ESP 9, and it is still humming along without any problems.

Thanks everyone, I will not be able sleep tonight after reading these stories. Have had ESP 3 for two months. I keep power on to avoid hearing the Kodak calliope. Sounds like its going to self destruct. Out of curiosity I emailed Kodak last week and asked how much and where I could buy a new print head just in case I ever needed one. They said “printer heads are not for sale, this hardware component is given free of cost for our customers printers.” Hope I do not need one!

I bought a Kodak ESP9; right off the bat there is no manual. I put it together, and tried to print out a picture. I had to check its quality, since ink is so cheap. I couldn’t print it and got an error 1000. Okay I called tech support, and honest to God I spoke with two regular tech’s and finally wound up with one of the Supervisors. Only one of the three I could understand well enough. I was told to download a newer software off their site and did all that was required, and tried to print a picture, and it still gave me the same error. We did the ole unplug everything and kick it back on. We rebooted I don’t know how many times? Even the Supervisor came in and took over my computer trying to fix the problem. Some six plus (6+) hours later he signs off telling me he is going to give the files he copied to the Engineer. That was on Friday 10/01 because it was the weekend I had to wait for Monday to come around, and I receive an E-mail asking if I would be available on Monday the 5th and I responded that they could. Here it is Tuesday the 6th and haven’t heard from anyone yet. Over the weekend I discovered that I got some other errors. Such as “Printer doesn’t recognize ink cartridges” Papers edge not found, wouldn’t accept card stock, nor could I print business cards. It took numerous tries’ and on pure white card stock before would it accept to print business cards. I can’t figure out how to lighten the light or darkness of a document being copied or scanned. If it is printed front & back. The light on the scanner is such that it will bleed through and I get a revered copy of what is on the side that is not being copied, and it prints crooked and really slow. I haven’t had near the problems that I have read other people having with tech support, but I am only a newbie to this. NOPE if you ask me DON’T ANYONE BUY A KODAK ESP9~~ Dirty Words~~ NUFF SAID!

I have had a Kodak 5500 All-in-one for two years now. I have a replacement machine because the first one went through 4 printheads with no end is sight. Kodak replaced it with no hassle.

My replacement machine just went through it’s first printhead replacement. Kodak Overnighted a replacement to me.

I don’t think it uses any more ink than HP. In fact, I had two HP’s before this and I got sick and tired of paying $50 to replace the ink cartridges. Having 3 different HP printers and all 3 taking “different” cartridges, to me, was an example of corporate greed.

My replacement Kodak printer gives me good image quality and seems to work well. Although, scanning is a bit dicey and can be a real pain in the you-know-what.

Kodak support is OK as long as the person speaks English. And, not all do (or do it well enough to understand).

However, if I have to go though another printhead replacement, I will most likely look for another brand of printer.

The ink is cheap, but you have to buy it often, and even if you rarely print in color, you have to install color cartridges often as well. That’s because it uses color at every start up. When the color ink runs low, it simply shuts down and does not let you print. Even if you are only printing black text. Looking elsewhere now.

I hate my Kodak ESP3 printer. Nothing but trouble. I can’t even figure out how to scan on it. The directions are horrible, and I can’t find anyone at the call center who I can even understand.

I bought an ESP 7 at the beginning of the year!! I hate this printer, it has been nothing but trouble from day one!! Just had a replacement sent to me and now it is not working, Kodak had done a very poor job with their ESP printers. Ink may be inexpensive, but I would rather pay for the ink and a great printer and not have the headaches I have had with this printer. Can anyone give me tell me a good printer to get. I want to be able to print out my pictures 1st time around and not want to throw the printer out the window when I hit print and a blank photo comes out.

I’ved owned a Kodak ESP7 for just under a year, with no issues. I print extensively without any difficulty. I have compared my prints to higher end laser printers( hp. etc) to which my printer seems to surpass in color. The only disappointment I have thusfar is the inability to make larger size prints.

Oh yea forgot to mention the paper jams and total inability to pickup a bloody envelope.

I have experienced most of the problems dealing with connectivity of the Kodak ESP-3 in the last two weeks.
I have owned the printer for 7 months.

You ask “What Do You Think?”…….I think it is time for a class action lawsuit.
RWG

Well, I sure am glad I read this.

I just finished fixing up an older Mac G4 tower for my 80 YO Mother In law. new GD and memory. Still a good machine.

Her PC computer has been dead for a while so I am betting her canon printer has ink kicked in the heads as well.

I was thinking a Kodak. Oh Heck No…. Not after reading this……… She is 6 hours from me. No way am I getting into that!

HP for her. At least that way the head comes with the cartridge.

Kodak all-in-one printers are the worst. DO NOT BUY ONE. I have had three so far (the original having been replaced twice after hours on the phone with India and having to send the bad printer back or get charged). The problem the same each time (wont work without paper in upper tray, put paper in upper tray and letter size prints out on 5 by 7). They now want to send me a fouth replacement. UNBELIEVABLE.

I’m a professor, and I do tons of printing. In the last four months, I spent over $250 on ink. I’m keeping the HP as backup, and buying a Kodak for everyday jobs. Hopefully, Kodak will work out the bugs. HP has them too, but it’s a reliable printer in general.

I got ESP 3 because they advertize how cheap the ink is, but it goes through ink 5 times as fast and the print head went out of it already, they sent me a new one, so must be common. and I do very little pinting. So never buy a Kodak printer!!

Please let us know if Kodak Mans up and recalls them all, peices of junk!!

Just bought a kodak esp3 printer, already had to replace the printer head as it would not print photos any where close to an acceptable quality level. The ink for this printer is cheaper but it uses ink much faster than the lexmark aio that I was previously using. I will try the new printhead to see if it lasts any longer than the last one, if not it goes into the trash and I go back to H.P. or Lexmark. Would not recommend this product to anyone.

We purchased the ESP7 Kodal All In One Printer a few months ago. Although the ink is cheap, I’m not sure yet as I had to replace my black and color cartridges quickly (less than 200 pages). Also, the printer is slow queing up. Recently I was unable to export my Quark files to PDF due to no PostScript Printer option. When I contacted Kodak support, followed their instructions, the problem became worse. Now for over 1 day i am without a printer connection. My computer indicates I am not connected to printer, I am unable to locate my original install disk and when I went online, when I downloaded the Firmware for Kodal AIO printers, nothing happense. It goes through the motion of downloading and running but only the icon is on the desktop no app. So I’m awfully discouraged with this printer and wondering if they are misrepresenting their product.

I own one the ESP3 biggest piece of crap ever, I would like to take it out in the yard and use it for target practice but until I find a replacement we need it my hubby has to scan and print for work daily and this was obviously not meant for daily use the scan button on the top has never worked we have to use the software which take a day and ahlf to load even after I got a new PC, it wont print on photo paper correctly even KODAK brand paper I have been on the phone and chat service with them for months now trying to fix the problem the keep telling me its my ink cartridge that is brand new BTW and reading at 30% ink left WTF does KODAK have some lab rats over there doing QC its rediculous that they are selling this crap I am waiting for them to be recalled due to shock hazard as well being as mine has shocked me about 1500 times now and I refuse to even leave it plugged in anymore when its not in use. I feel like a fool for spending twice what a reg. printer would have cost for this piece of junk.

I am on my 4th printhead on my 5300AIO. When it prints, it’s beautiful. The problem I have is fouling of the jets due to low usage. Kodak is going to send me yet another printhead. They should have a better maintenance for the head, a small exe that would clean them every week, or something of that nature. Not everyone prints every single day, Kodak did not take this into account in their design. This POS will likely be going to the range and become the victim of my AR or M1 Garand, at least I can have some fun throwing this thing away.

Just bought a esp 5250…found out where India is..how can you trust anybody that doesn’t know what Christmas is…hmmm….so to date..it is noisy..the kodak software and their printer driver wont work together on my wireless note book..( will work on my hard wired desktop) says the printer processor is missing during install and aborts but the printer is in the controll panel/printer area and it can be used for other programs….India says…huh ??? phone H/P

I am so glad I found your web site. I was getting ready to purchase a Kodak printer, but now I will stick with HP. One of the main reason I would not purchase one now, is the location of their tech support group. I would like to see, as a requirement, all companies that sell products to publish the location of their tech support and let that help influence people to purchase their product or not.

Have been looking for a replacement for my Lexmak Printer because of the ink cost. Was ready to buy the Kodak ESP5 until I read the comments about malfunctions and the foreign support. shall keep my Lexmark ( I am very happy with the quality).

HI to everyone ouy there who runs a 5100 series ,i borrowed mine from a mate who had issues with it working properly .so we set it up and got it working and showed him the results ,however when the colour needs replacing we find that the status monitor says that the print head in not working so we replaced this with a new one and bingo .it prints very good /however i replaced the colour the other day and it said the the print head is not rconised so i looked for help and read that someone had run theirs under the warm tap to wash the jets through ,so we gave it a try and it works and we also blew it out BUT let it dry for a day or two then clean heads and align them best of luck to all who try

How do you get the Kodak esp3 to scan? For a long time it would only print one page at a time. After I figured out to check the collate box, it now prints however many I want. The directions are crappy, and I refuse to call India. If you are not familiar with all the computer terminology, trying to understand somebody from India talk computer is impossible.

THE ESP 3 IS the worst printer I have ever owned. Kodak even sent me a replacement after 4 months of arguing with them, and the replacement is just as bad. Right now it is making all of these terrible sounds. It tries to suck up 20 pages at once, and then the pages get jammed. Right now it is only printing in color ink. I have replaced the printer head and the entire printer. Do not buy this piece of junk.

I have a Kodak ESP3 all in one printer, this is the worse
printer I have ever had, I would not tell any one to buy
a Kodak printer, most off the time it is broken, the rest of the time it might or might not print, I have wasted so much money on fixing it, buying ink. It is the biggest piece of
crap. I know I will never buy Kodak again, I will go back to
Lexmark and pay a little more for ink, and get my prints.
On a scale of 1 to 10 Kodak printer rank 1.

I purchased an ESP3 for my daughter to use in college. I bought into the cheaper ink hype and in theory the Kodak design should make the ink cheaper because they only use the cartridges to hold the ink. The print head is an independent unit. The problem is that the ESP3 is just a terrible printer. After two weeks it failed and the Kodak support from India is terrible. First I had to replace the print head. That didn’t work so after many more calls to India the were to replace it with a new ESP3. The replacement print was not new it was a refurbished unit and it did not work out of the box. There is no way to speak with anyone in the US. I finally called the President’s office to unload and they are sending me a new ESP5250 because “the ESP3 just don’t work.” I’ll never buy another Kodak product. They should find the guy that decided that they should outsource customer support to India and burn him at a stake. I replaced the ESP3 with a cheep HP 4680 and it works great. Always go with HP. There is a reason that they have the largest market share.

My Kodak 5300 sucks. Purchased new in March 2009 it has gone through 3 printheads and is still not working right. The person I spoke to said they could send another printhead but I said don’t bother. I can’t believe Kodak ignoring customer issues i read on lots of complaint sights. Class action time!!

i have kodak esp 5250 and the color quality s poor and it does not work with Avery software. Kodak support sent me 2 new print heads and a new printer, same issue. Now they will not refund my money or allow me to return the printer to them. they just keep sending me new printers. I want my $159 back!

Just posted this elsewhere, too…
—————————————————————–
I did it. I replaced my very old (albeit reliable) HP printer with the Kodak ESP 7. Low-cost ink…can’t beat it.

5 months later, it won’t print black. Used the Kodak support chat and they claimed it was a faulty(?) ink cartridge. I told them that I had already bought a new one and replaced it. They insisted it was the ink and that within 5 business days that I’d get a new replacement cartridge. cased cloesed. lol.

Went out and bought another black cartridge and tried that, NG. Went back to chat support and they finally admitted that the head seemed faulty. Another one on the way within 7 business days. So many hours spent on cleaning, going to Staples, test prints, chat support, etc. Time = $$. I feel quite stupid now.

HP, this doesn’t mean I enjoy your outrageous prices and I’m gonna stay with Kodak until the new head comes and see what happens.

Kodak, you offshore jobs and piss people off with your poor quality and service. Don’t sit there and scratch your head later and wonder why.

Purchased a Kodak ESP 5250………. I would not recommend this printer to anyone. I am on my third replacement unit from Kodak because of the printer head being jammed or the cartridges refusing to center in order to change the ink cartridges. Support has been good but it wears thin when you cant print for a customer. Warranty is only as good as the product it backs up and when my printer is broken 3 days out of 5 the warranty coverage is meaningless. The print quality is good when it works and the tech guys in India are very friendly to talk to. Ink is cheap but doesnt go as far as my HP did. I dont know if you get the same miles per gallon over all, I havent figured it out but I am going to guess the HP did better as it lasted much longer. Too bad because I am a real Kodak fan and I have always used their products, they need to redesign these printers, their quality is poor overall due to low reliability…………………….too bad.

Kodak printers – at least the ESP I own – MUST BE AVOIDED!! Do not be sucked in my cheap cartridge price, a black cartridge is inadequate to print a full tax return (prior year, can’t efile) … it’s effectively useless. I plan to take it back to the store and dump on their desk and tell them to keep it. Don;t buy Kodal folks!

Kodak 5300: worst printer ever. broke 3 times now. Twice the printheads went. Now all it does is shoot out blank pieces of paper (2), and then eats the third.

Then, customer service: no one speaks good enough English!! The problem, when it’s solved is 2 hours later, when, if they hired people who knew the language, could have been a half hour tops!

And to make things worse, this printer is a lemon, and my warranty expired just recently soon after the printer is now unfixable.

And–the paper that was destroyed and ruined: $!

the ink cartridges because they weren’t good anymore: $!

You think you’ll save money on a Kodak printer? –Think again!!

I have had this Kodak ESP 3 for about a year. I have nothing good to say it about it because it jams up, I waste paper. Now it tells me, I have no paper in the tray which I do. I can’t find any reason for it to say that. The ink is cheaper, and that’s a plus. But, with all the paper I have wasted, I would have been better off sticking with my HP printer all in one. The quality of print is not what I expected. My HP did a better job! I think Kodak should stick to cameras, and stop making printers.

Does anyone know why this thing is telling me I have no paper?

One problem after another.
I purchased the Kodak ESP-3 at a local Walmart in December of 2008. By the way I doubt that I printed more than a couple dozen pictures and maybe 4-500 pages of black and white documents. From the get go the printer was noisy and slow. Often (keep in mind that I am a seldom user) it would provide irregular color and black and white resulting in throw aways.
I contacted the support number and they ( India ) walked me through stuff without any improvement. They sent me a printer head, which I inserted and got temporary satisfactory printing. A couple months passed and the problem resurfaced. Bottom line, they sent me a new printer.
Now, after printing 547 pages and replacing both inks, twice the thing does not print. After calling support they decided that the printer head needed to be AGAIN.
After buying 4 complete ink replacements I give up. This is the worst printer, bar none, that I have ever purchased.
By the way, paper jams were an ongoing problem. I agree with others that Kodak should stick with cameras.

We operate a nonprofit organization at home, along with other personal and other organizational printing, sometimes requiring heavy print jobs, running 2 or 3 printers at one time to expedite. In the last half of 2008, we purchased a Kodak 5300 AiO through their TV infomercial.

I’ll give you the downside first: I’ve had them replace the printhead three times. Each time done quickly and without hesitation after a few simple tests to ascertain it was indeed a printhead problem. Clearly, there was a printhead design defect at the time I purchased originally. My 3rd printhead has been working well for a long time now, and we’re about 1.5 years into using this machine. Since moving to Windows 7, the printer keeps losing connectivity, requiring me to reboot…which does restore connectivity (no other approach works so far, including working with a Kodak tech via Live Chat). But, overall, it works fine once this is reestablished, and it seems to be an unresolved compatibility issue with the OS.

NOTE: I’ve had plenty of problems with plenty of printers. The Kodak people do work with you and aren’t afraid to admit when it’s their problem. I think maybe the printhead problem is resolved now. The problems with theirs certainly aren’t any worse than problems encountered with other printers.

Now the upside of things: The cost for ink for this printer is WAY WAY WAY WAY cheaper, and when you print a lot, and consider spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars each year, just for ink, this is HUGE!!!!! Please do not pass up a Kodak printer just because of some niggly problems. If you do, you will pay for your choice. The other companies need to come up to speed when it comes to not jamming people so heavy for ink. This factor alone makes it well worth giving Kodak a serious try. The photo quality, using the exact same cartridges used for other work (instead of buying separate photo cartridges) does absolutely wonderful work. I’ve handed prints from this printer to people and they just couldn’t believe it was from a printer. Of course, other photo printers can do this to whatever degree…but I would challenge them to do it at this price for ink! If they can’t…well, that’s their problem.

A store rep the other day went on and on about how their store had stopped carrying Kodak, and how it had problems. I just smiled and told him that mine works fine and saves me literally hundreds of dollars a year, just for my one Kodak printer. This one you can take to the bank!

For my newly minted home business, I purchased a Kodak ESP 9 back in April of 2009. Couldn’t find that model at a Best Buy or a Walmart or a Staples, so I got it directly from Kodak.

I run a 64-bit Vista operating system, and can’t complain about its performance with the Kodak. I have updated firmware at least once for the Kodak since I’ve had it; major upgrade back in January/February of this year. Took quite a while, but it went through successfully. No complaints with that.

I do use the Kodak to print small jobs every day, mostly black ink printing, and even with the color printing have found the quality of print to be quite good, with a quick-drying ink that lays flat on the paper, and doesn’t make the paper ripple-y, like the other inkjet printers. Nice. I dig that.

The cartridges are definitely cheaper, and I don’t need to wait two or three weeks to buy cartridges (as I used to have to do when I had a first-generation HP laser printer and later, an Epson inkjet). I mean, I literally had to wait to have the money in my pocket, and couldn’t print until then! I planned, upon researching printers for my business, to avoid this problem by getting the Kodak. Every freelancer has lean weeks, and I wanted to plan for them.

I also wanted the scanning, copying, faxing features, just in case such a thing was needed. By now I have used all of these features, although I don’t have to use them often. But they all work just fine!

Now, back to the printing specifics. As i said, the print quality is very good. However, with use, I have noticed the following problems that I was able to work through, and perhaps you will find these remarks helpful:

If, like me, you are a bit of space cadet and foolishly leave something sitting in front of the printer (like, say, a few pieces of mail or other seemingly harmless small obstacle sitting there) and you ditzily try to print anyway, you will find that as the gears are pushing the paper out, the piddling resistance offered by this very small obstacle will cause the printing to go awry ( the paper will become skewed), rather than simply causing the paper to rise up a bit on feedout and roll over the obstacle. This in itself is annoying, but other than compelling one to stop one’s work to try and find a lasting cure for ditziness, what problems can it cause?

Well…once you curse and print again, you will find the print quality will be affected.

Why? Because the printhead will be smeared with the ink that didn’t transfer to the paper. Once I genius’d this through, after unrewarding recalibrations, printhead cleanings, etc., I found that by physically removing and cleaning the messy printhead (carefully), THEN performing the steps of powering up again and recalibrating and clearing the nozzles, etc., I was able to forstall the “gotta replace the ink-clogged printhead” problem. All was seemingly well again. (Until the next time I did the same GD thing with something in front of the print feedout. Then, with the same required maintenance on my part to get things printing right.)

So, obviously, one should keep things away from in front of the printer…unread junk mail, one-inch-high stacks of dead bees, slim volumes of verse.

Other discoveries: find a paper that works well with the Kodak. Avoid getting either the cheapest paper or, inversely, an expensive, too-stiff paper that is literally too thick for the gears to work with. I found that Staples 98 Bright White Inkjet paper works well. During my year of ownership, before I arrived at this paper choice, I have also, at times of poverty, used papers that were too flimsy (gears would pull two at a time, and again, if the paper is not pulled correctly, you risk smearing of ink on printheads) and others that were a bit too slick or had a lower quality, roughened composition that, I believed, contributed to paper jamming problems due to “fuzzing up” (paper lint accumulation). So, once you find a paper that works well, stick to that one. I have found mine and I am staying with it.

As a general remark, I have found that paper jamming occurs but seldom, but I will say, once it occurs, it’s a real PIA to resolve. You have to pull out the paper tray and all but upend the printer to pull out the jam. And even then you end up with torn paper in there, so you have a legacy of shreds to clean out here and there. This can cause some printing hell, but with the right paper choice, not putting too much paper in the paper holder at a time, and a using paper that has been protected from curling in humidity (just keep the paper stored flat in its plastic wrapper, not out all naked in a big stack, where it can collect moisture from the air and curl), you will probably have a good result.

Maybe some of this stuff will help somebody out there. I like the Kodak ESP 9, and if it keeps chugging along, I’d buy another one down the line. But with comments like the ones I’ve read here, I will keep my eyes open to any situations that I can’t live with (like constant printhead replacement, mindless paper jamming I can’t resolve with some simple home fixits, and so on). I would go nuts if I had to contend with that crap all the time.

Good luck to all.

I also have an ESP3 Printer and like others on this forum have had nothing but trouble with the print cartridges.IIn the time I have had this I have used 3 Black Cartridges and 6 Colour ones. This is dispite the fact that I hardly ever print in colour.
I have previosly been in touch with Kodak relating to this and I have been sent a new print head with instructions to download new software.
I then kept a record of the number of copies printed since that was installed along with a new Colour Cartridge.
The Colour has now run out and number of copies printed has been a total of 88 sheets. Most of these have beeb ib black only, one in blue and a odd one or two nwhere a odd word has been hightlighted in colour.
Been on to Kodak once again and in reply they are sendind me another print head?
I am positive that this will not solve the problem as I can gather this is not a one off problem.
I might add that in selecting Draft print instead of normal, there does not appear to be any difference in print quality, has anyone else noticed this?
Why can Kodak not be honest about this and admit there is a problem with the ESP3 and take it off the market.
I, for one, will never buy Kodak again.
“Buy Kodak and save money on ink” – what a joke
Why can Kodak

“$&##*%%^” and other comments of an unprintable nature. I am very happy with my ESP 3………IF…..you disregard the fact that it :-
1) Picks 2 OR MORE sheets of paper up at the same time.
2) Manages to mangle the paper 50% of the time (the cost to the rainforests of this manglilation (it’s a word…lol) is dependant on how many sheets it’s picked up (see point 1))
3) It prints BLACK text in a rather lighter shade of grey (presumably due to it using my colour ink ALOT!!!)
3A) It uses ALOT of colour ink (I realise this is a repeat…lol…but it DOES!!!)
3B) It presumably uses more electricity than necessary due to the red LED flashing telling you that your colour ink is running low (almost CONSTANTLY!!)
4) The Kodak AiO Home Centre only seems to work when run with administrator permissions.

My advice is fairly simple……….NO, NO, NO!!!

I have an ESP7 and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever purchased. Eats cartridges like candy. Print quality is rotten.

If a cartridge is empty, forget it. You can’t even SCAN!!! The printer/scanner/hunk of junk just keeps reporting it’s “Busy” so you can’t do anything.

Tech support is terrible. Been told on numerous occasions they were sending me new cartridges or print heads. NEVER received one even though I’d follow up with the ticket number. Get no response from their tech support.

If you are thinking of buying one of these to save money on ink. HA. You’ll replace the cartridges at a rate of 3-4x more often then a good HP or Epson. The cleaning cycle (which runs every time you turn it on) will chew up 5%+ of your ink cartridges. I’ve emptied a color cartridge without ever printing a color picture.

Run, don’t walk, away from these when you see them on the shelf!

had the ESP3 for year and a half, thought it was ok, [just trusted it to do what it should do!]
Don’t often use it, once a week maybe.
6 months ago black ran out so I changed it, week later it ran out again. made several half hearted attempts to work out why, as the printouts were coming out blank although the printer was going through the process of printing. for the last 6 months we’ve had to copy anything we want to print onto a ‘pages’ [we've got it connected to a imac] page and change the font to print out in blue which seems to work ok most of the time though very time consuming.
After reading the other posts I wish I’d contacted kodak earlier as it was still just under warrantee to sort the print head out. I think I’ll go back to using my HP as I’m fed up with spending time on a 0845 or whatever number it is to talk to someone in a foreign land who I have trouble understanding. don’t want to go down this road with Kodak.
Is there a way I can buy a new printhead from the uk and fit it myself?

please save yourself some time and money, and nerves trying to understand Kodak rep.It is very trying as none of them I have gotten speaks English..Don’t buy a Kodak 5300. I bought one 2 years ago. I had problems right away with this printer. I talked to a Kodak Rep, and it was established it was my printhead. I told them I was going to take it back to Wal-mart where I puchased it I was talked out of doing this as I was told that they would furnish me new printheads as long as I needed them for free.
That was a lie. Today I was told I would have to purchase a new printhead if I wanted one.
I wish I would have returned it right away. It would have saved me time and trouble getting new printheads every 4 months, and now being told that what I was told was a lie. I was always a Kodak fan, but not anymore. I never saved money on ink, so don’t believe that lie either.

My power cord and adapter is broken/not working? I checked to replace these parts and they cost ($39.99) is half of what the printer cost. Kodak ESP3 (89.99) Any suggestion for any similar power cords and adapters.

I have the ESP3. Bought it about a year ago. While ink is cheap, it doesn’t last long, and I recently had a problem which was diagnosed as a bad printhead. The Kodak rep asked me if I’d replaced it within the last 90 days. Um, what?! They did send me one, free of charge THIS TIME, but I will NOT be replacing printheads every 90 days or whatever. This printer is VERY noisy and loves to get paper jams and grab more than one sheet of paper at a time. I am not impressed with it at all! I will be saving up to buy a new printer, NOT a Kodak. Good luck if you get one! I had a Kodak camera, which I HATED and now I can say I have a Kodak printer, which I HATE! Never again will I buy Kodak!

I am an am imaging professional. I have been using Kodak print products for more than a decade and a half (@Jeff – new manufacturer??? New to you, maybe… the print industry has been using Kodak for 50 years or more…)

For non-inkjet, Kodak leads by a wide margin. Their continuous tone printers are fantastic – fast, colour-fast, impeccable quality.

For inkjet I have used all the majors over the last 30 years – HP, Lexmark, Canon, Epson – none of them are pain-free.

I have a very expensive HP borderless A3 printer that loves eating print heads at about $150 a time… three in two years for around 7250 A3/A4 pages.

As with all inkjets, your milage will vary, depending on temps, humidity, age of paper stock, type of paper stock, age of ink, number of pages/day, etc.

This current unit is the last HP I will buy, unless they make me a really good deal…

The Kodak professional printing systems are state of the art and are leading the industry in usability, price and performance. Their consumer products may be suffering some teething troubles, but if HP is so damned good, why am I still suffering the same problems now as I was 20 years ago?

HP mechanicals are sound, their software well sorted, but the delivery of ink to the page is still sloppy.

You won’t find many HP units in professional hands – apart from their wide-format plotter/printers used for banner and advertising production – for a reason. Expensive and unreliable.

That being said, they have great service options – they need to.

I bought the Kodak 5210 all-in-one one Dec. 30, 2010 and have had to contact Kodak six times since I bought it. When I got it home I set it up and it worked fine. When I went back to use it a few hours later it wouldn’t scan, so I tried to call Kodak but kept getting hung up on. Live chat worked so I used it and the person was able to help me. The all-in-one started scanning. On Jan 3 I go to use it and it doesn’t scan, so I again use live chat since you can’t call, it got fixed but wouldn’t work a few hours later. Again I contacted Kodak through live chat and after removing & reinstalling everything for the third time I was told they needed to do remote assistance of my computer. I was told to call the phone number but just kept getting hung up on. Thought about taking it back but decided to give it one more chance. I spent two days trying to get through. I contacted live chat to tell them I can’t get through on the phone and they tell me to keep holding even though I have told them the phone hangs up. I called back and and used the option of self service. After choosing a couple of options I was able to get the option for an operator. Had to wait about 15 minutes to get someone, who then put me on hold. About 15 minutes later I got someone who did a remote assistance on my computer. He did what I had already done with live chat but at least it worked. I was on the phone a total of an hour & 40 mins. I checked it today and it doesn’t work so I called. After sitting on the phone for 30 mins I hung up & decided to go get my money back and find another printer.

I have read various websites and/or blogs about the Kodak ESP 7 printer. Seems like the standard response from the tech support in India is to send a new printhead. They sent me three and finally sent me a reconditioned printer. I was miffed because I had a new printer I couldn’t use for over a month and then got a reconditioned replacement after I had just spent money to buy a new printer based on the Kodak name. I have seen complaint after complaint about the ESP7 and they all have the same frustrating story. The reconditioned printer has been working fine with a few annoying moments. I do like the quality of the prints but if someone asked me if they should buy one, I would tell them no.

I purchased an all-in-one Kodak ESP5210 printer from my local PC World, I have had it for 3 months and I’ve only just replaced the ink cartridges. I print out photo’s and letters week in week out, so very impressive.

I have copied a few certificates too and I have also used the printer stand-alone by just plugging a memory card (SD) in to the front. It is very easy to use. Idiot proof as I like to say.

THE BAD NEWS:

The printer has stopped functioning properly as of yesterday. The printer is pulling in paper violently and printing text/photo’s out in all different directions. The text/photo’s are coming out wonky (sorry, best word I can think of to describe it).

I have tried ringing PC World and Kodak, Kodak keep running through various different diagnostics such as; re-aligment, change of printer head, printer ink, different paper etc. All the which I have replaced. I have spent a lot of money trying to fix this. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have only had it 3 months and it’s under guarantee, Kodak aren’t offering an exchange and the printer is pretty much useless.

Help?

Bought my Kodak ESP3 over a year ago and have had NO problems. I also have this printer shared with other computers of different OS’s and I found I had to install it the “back” way like a network printer. \computernameprintername. It worked perfectly after that and on 3 different OS’s at that. Had a problem when using a KVM switch for monitor/keyboard/mouse but with a rebuild of the ‘main’ pc, that was resolved. The printer tried to take over and if I had the switch plugged it, it had a hissy and just wouldn’t work at all until I unplugged the wireless mouse. I had to disregard the switch for awhile but as mentioned after that rebuild and reinstall, works awesome.

Having an issue where I get one blank sheet of paper first with everything I try to print…then have to submit the print job again. Easy enough to work around. Other wise, you can’t beat the cost of ink and it’s an awesome little printer. I would for sure get another but maybe wireless next time. The cord they gave me with it was way to short! No problems with scanning, even with low ink as someone mentioned. Simply rebooted the printer and then attempted the scan. Like a charm! Good luck all!