The Kodak EasyShare All-In-One machines, as they are called, mark the company's first entry into the consumer market for inkjet printers. Kodak is touting them as "revolutionary," based on their ability to print both high-quality photographs as well as documents while chopping ink costs almost in half.
Citing a study by market research firm InfoTrends indicating that consumers consider the cost of ink and supplies an obstacle to printing documents and photos from home, Kodak has centered its All-In-One line around cutting down on ink costs. The printers use Kodak's own ink, which costs $9.99 for a black-and-white cartridge and $14.99 for a color cartridge.
According to Kodak, an All-in-One printer with this ink will be able to produce twice as many documents or photos as a competitor's printer and ink would at the same cost. The company also sells a "Kodak Value Pack," which it claims will reduce the expense of printing a 4x6-inch photo to 10 cents.
"You are throwing that (technology) away and buying a new one every time you buy one of their cartridges, which is pretty expensive stuff, said Cheryl Pohlman, a marketing director at Kodak. "With our system, we have put that print head right into the printer...so all you have to buy is ink."
She notes that the products close a loop, of sorts, for Kodak, such that customers can now use Kodak services to print in any of the three most common ways: online, at one-stop-shopping machines at retail stores, or at home.
"What we want to do is give people who want to print at home a choice," she said in interview with Reuters. "We believe that this is a profitable business model for Kodak and that for a consumer, it is freeing the way they can print at home."
Analysts, who had been told since late 2003 to look for an inkjet strategy from the Rochester, N.Y.-based company, are already skeptical about how Kodak will be able to compete with companies that have millions of printers sitting alongside personal computers owned by families and small businesses.
"We remain concerned that the up-front costs of establishing an installed base will be high, and that the mature and competitive nature of consumer inkjet requires considerable research and development, and (operating cost) commitments," analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research said in a client note published in anticipation of the inkjet launch.
Kodak EasyShare All-In-One printers will be sold at Best Buy stores beginning in March and on Kodak's Web site beginning in April.
The All-In-One line consists of three models, all of which have printing, scanning and copying capabilities. The 5100 model ($149.99) is the most basic, with the ability to print 32 pages per minute in black and white or 22 in color, and it can connect to PictBridge-compatible digital cameras for photo printing.
The second model, the 5300 ($199.99), adds a 3-inch color LCD display for photo viewing and cropping, as well as several memory card slots to better enable photo printing without needing to use a PC. The highest-level All-In-One, the 5500 ($299.99), is geared toward the home office "prosumer" market with a built-in fax machine, an automatic document feeder and a duplexer attachment.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Eastman Kodak Co., All-in-One, cartridge, Kodak EasyShare, multifunction printer
Beware of:
1) Each new Model obsoletes old equipment and supplies. Product changes on a 4-6 month cycle will require different connectors, new expendable supplies that are incompatible with older equipment, etc.
2) When the next model comes out, the expendables for the current model cease to be supplied and supported, therefore you must buy new equipment to continue using the product family line.
3) Windows plug-and-play licensed drivers are not included. Kodak-only drivers are generally specialized and buggy, especially in the first couple of cycles mentioned above.
I speak from experience. I currently have a drawer of 5 consumer cameras at home, none of which are currently in use. Each has various combinations of their own media types, docking stations, docking adapters, batteries, chargers, cords, etc. No single combination is interchangeable with any other combination.
I finally gave up and went to another brand about 3 years ago and have been more satisfied and a whole lot less frustrated.
I have to question why many people need to print directly from the camera anyhow. Using a computer in between adds so much versatility!
Beware of:
1) Each new Model obsoletes old equipment and supplies. Product changes on a 4-6 month cycle will require different connectors, new expendable supplies that are incompatible with older equipment, etc.
2) When the next model comes out, the expendables for the current model cease to be supplied and supported, therefore you must buy new equipment to continue using the product family line.
3) Windows plug-and-play licensed drivers are not included. Kodak-only drivers are generally specialized and buggy, especially in the first couple of cycles mentioned above.
I speak from experience. I currently have a drawer of 5 consumer cameras at home, none of which are currently in use. Each has various combinations of their own media types, docking stations, docking adapters, batteries, chargers, cords, etc. No single combination is interchangeable with any other combination.
I finally gave up and went to another brand about 3 years ago and have been more satisfied and a whole lot less frustrated.
I have to question why many people need to print directly from the camera anyhow. Using a computer in between adds so much versatility!
BTW, I have just gone thru buying a printer and AIO and thats where those comments come from. As a management consultant I tend to research products extensively before buying....trying to get thru the websites for these companies, trying to get info about their products at the Best Buys etc....horrible. In most cases, I new more about the individual machines I targeted than any sales person I encountered. The online info, if you could find it was difficult to unscramble to get to key details. My emails to the 3 top companies regarding specific models were generally answered only by form emails which didnt answer the questions. When I got a "human" response it was generally not a direct answer to my question.
BTW, I have just gone thru buying a printer and AIO and thats where those comments come from. As a management consultant I tend to research products extensively before buying....trying to get thru the websites for these companies, trying to get info about their products at the Best Buys etc....horrible. In most cases, I new more about the individual machines I targeted than any sales person I encountered. The online info, if you could find it was difficult to unscramble to get to key details. My emails to the 3 top companies regarding specific models were generally answered only by form emails which didnt answer the questions. When I got a "human" response it was generally not a direct answer to my question.
accomplishes nothing else, Kodak will shake up the market and
that's long overdue. I've had both Epson & HP printers (right now
I have 2 HPs - the old workhorse 1218 which still works great -
and a newer (oversize prints) 9800 which is the pits. (I
understand it's no longer available - I can see why). I currently
have a Kodak EasyShare camera with dock (a great convenience)
and am very pleased with it. It will be very interesting to see
what Kodak comes up with in the printer line. I - and everybody
else - will be watching...
accomplishes nothing else, Kodak will shake up the market and
that's long overdue. I've had both Epson & HP printers (right now
I have 2 HPs - the old workhorse 1218 which still works great -
and a newer (oversize prints) 9800 which is the pits. (I
understand it's no longer available - I can see why). I currently
have a Kodak EasyShare camera with dock (a great convenience)
and am very pleased with it. It will be very interesting to see
what Kodak comes up with in the printer line. I - and everybody
else - will be watching...
It is the old story about the safety razor and the blades all over again.
It is the old story about the safety razor and the blades all over again.
I hope they have individual ink tanks for the colors or do they use the wasteful 3 in one color concept that requires buying a new color cart when, for example, only the red is gone.
I hope they have individual ink tanks for the colors or do they use the wasteful 3 in one color concept that requires buying a new color cart when, for example, only the red is gone.
- Kodak's Cliam Doesn't Hold Water
- by DennyInCary March 24, 2007 7:48 AM PDT
- Kodak claims that their printing is 50% cheaper over other brands. The truth is...Kodak is 2.9¢ per page black and 15¢ for a 4? x 6? photo. HP is 4.5¢ per page black and 24¢ for a 4" x 6" photo. Where is the 50% savings. Also, HP offers more features for the same price with 2.4? color graphics display, Digital media card slots -Photosmart Express user interface - HP Photosmart Premier software. Again... where is the 50% savings. Buyer beware!
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- Deteriorating products
- by sallieb August 19, 2007 6:31 PM PDT
- I always loved HP and bought an HP 9800 about a year ago. It's a dog. A friend bought an Epson recently - it's a dog. These are companies with a rep for quality. Are their products taking a nose dive - as so often seems to happen these days - ('one of the virtues of 'outsourcing'). Kodak, on the other hand, has a reputation to establish in the field of printer production. Will their product be topnotch? One hopes. I just bought one and it's not out of the box yet. We shall see...
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