Ron Schenone

Kodak Printer Revisted – After A Year, Negative Comments Continue To Flow

Posted by on May 13, 2010 | 10 Comments

Back on March 31, 2009 I wrote an article ‘Who’s Using A Kodak Printer? Opinions Needed,’ in the hope of finding out how well these printers functioned. I was in the market for purchasing a new printer and what originally intrigued me was the thought, according to the Kodak ads, of cheap ink. Having been an HP printer person since Windows was still DOS, I don’t even want to think about how much money I have sent to HP to line the pockets of its corporate executives.! So when I asked for opinions, I was hoping to get positive responses. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Since writing the original article [linked below] there have been about 110 comments with the bulk being anything but flattering. There appear to be issues with the print heads needing replacement often and also issues with Kodak technical support. Again, I do not own a Kodak printer myself so I can only pass on what others are saying. You can read the comments and make an informed decision for yourself.

Kodak is in the process of offering a new model, the 7250 All-In-One printer, that offers some advanced features at a reasonable price of $166.99 for pre-sale on Amazon.com. A Crunchgear article states:

The cost of ink is also excellent for this printer. At $9.99 for black and white and $17.99 for color is pretty great. The print outs weren’t absolutely stellar but they were sufficiently sharp and crisp with a fresh ink cartridge.

Crunchgear ended with this ‘Bottom Line’:

Kodak tried stuff a lot of power into a small package. It’s an impressive printer but they did cut corners on the resolution of the 2.4-inch LCD. As I mentioned before, I’ve seen sharper prints from other, more expensive printers, but if you’re looking for something that’s inexpensive, you’re going to do just fine with this thing.

I took a look for any comments about this model, and there was one from a person who had tested a pre-sale test model and was impressed with the results. She stated that:

My family was lucky enough to get one of these printers to test for a few months. We had to send the test printer back yesterday but I’m putting my own on order today. The print quality and speed are incredible, the printer design is sleek and highly functional and the supplies are cheap compared to the dinky HP deskjet we had been using. I found the Kodak technical support unparalleled, especially compared to HP, and Canon. Kodak even built in a photo help center for photo editing, and printing. I did all 100 Christmas photo cards only with this software, and I used less than one black and one color cartridge. The Wireless function is great; my husband could print from his Windows work laptop and my daughter printed from her MacBook files from her room. We didn’t know you could print from an iPod touch, but she’ll get the free app to print from that. I didn’t get paid to write this, but you ought to know what a cool printer it is (I am not a techie, just a mom).

It should be interesting to see what others will have to say about this new model once it is released for mass consumption.

Amazon Pre-Order Kodak ESP 7250 All-in-One Printer

Crunchgear article – Kodak 7250 printer

March 31, 2009 article – Who’s Using A Kodak Printer? Opinions Needed

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  • Dick

    This makes my blood boil:
    “The cost of ink is also excellent for this printer. At $9.99 for black and white and $17.99 for color is pretty great.”

    No, that’s not pretty great.
    How about $3.50 each for color or black? Is that even pretty greater?

    Ink jets are like Gillette razors. They give you the razor so you will buy the blades. Old marketing scheme that made Gillette zillions.

    Price the ink people. The printers are pretty much all the same. They print nice. Do photos pretty nice too. Duplex printing is a plus.

    I go to ink sellers on the Internet and price the ink before I buy a printer. There are 3 classes of ink and only 1 of them is cheap.
    1. Original manufacturer
    2. Re-furbished original manufacturer
    3. Compatible

    Only number 3 – compatible is cheap. The manufacturers are doing all they can to prevent 3rd party ink cartridges. Now the latest, greatest is to put a “Chip” in the ink cartridge. This is going over the top. They add value to the disposable part?
    Check out InkGrabber, ClickInks, etc.

    You pay $60 – $100+ for a printer and in a year will spend more than that for ink (easily). Remember these folks are in business to sell INK! My favorite is when they tell you that any ink other than theirs will destroy the print head! Not true, been using compatible ink for 10 years, no problems. My current Canon Pixma 3000 is 4+ years old and running fine.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Dick,
      Have you ever tried the services at Walgreen?

  • Dick

    No but some relatives of mine use it.
    I’m only paying $3.50 or less for new so I haven’t had a need for it. Do you use it? What does it cost?

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Dick,
      No I haven’t but I have been considering giving it a try.
      Hmmmmm……. I think I’ll do an article and ask what people do use.

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  • Levi

    Well if what Dick says is true then yes the price of the inks is not that great. But it’s still pretty decent for ink from the company whose job it is to sell ink.

    And i really enjoy the quality I get from my printer. I’ve also beat this printer up pretty good so I’m surprised it still works, even if it is temperamental. I admit that it’s not the best but it works and I only spend about 50 dollars a year on my ink. And that’s with printing all of my papers for school and printing off graphics for the bulletin board examples we’re supposed to design.

    In my experience, and that may not count for anything, the ink lasts a considerable amount of time. So for me the price is good.

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  • Dick

    I have to agree with Levi. I watch friends and family print everything they see on their screen it seems. Photos, kids projects, etc. They go through a ton of ink and then complain about the price. I forgot folks like Levi and myself who are aware of the costs and keep control of ink usage. If you spend less than $100 a year on ink it doesn’t matter too much what the price is.
    My wife and I drive less than 4,000 miles a year. So if gas goes to $4 a gallon, we don’t really care too much. Same principle if you don’t use much ink. And yes, what I said is true, however I didn’t keep in mind the “Sane” folks out there like Levi and some others.

  • Lynn

    Anyone know an end run around the Kodak ESP 5 error for ‘replace color ink cartridge’? I have a new black ink cartridge, full, and want to print black and white and the machine won’t allow until I replace the color. Help?