Product
Review:
Kodak ESP 7250
Reviewed by: Jason Gillard
One of the biggest problems I have always had with inkjet printers is, the manufactures sell you a printer at a good price and then charge you an arm and a leg for the ink. Kodak has set out to change all that. This is a review of the Kodak ESP 7250 All-in-one printer.
At a cost of $199.99 this printer has a lot going for it. It is a copier, scanner and printer and the printer even has duplexing. It also has wi-fi and if you get the app for your Iphone you can print directly to it, from that device. It also has memory card support for SD/SDHC, MS, Duo, and CF. Plus there is a USB port on the front. You can print straight from a memory card or if you have a Pictbridge compatible camera you can print straight from that.
After opening and removing the printer from its box I pulled out the quick start guide and began to assemble the printer. I had no trouble getting the print head because I have gotten used to it with the previous Kodak printer I had. After the ink cartridges are installed, it will print out a calibration sheet. Luckily the calibration sheet is printed on regular paper this time. With the Kodak 5300 printer I reviewed before it had to be printed on a 4 x 6 sheet of paper which is kind of silly. The biggest advantage of this printer is definitely the cost of ink. You can get the black ink cartridge for a MSRP of $9.99 and the colour at $17.99. They have also released a new XL version of the black that sells for $16.99. It can produce 70% more pages than the standard black ink cartridge. These prices are really good, because when I had my Canon printer I was paying a lot more for ink.
Now cheap ink costs are fine, but if the printer can’t produce a decent picture then it might not be worth it. I am happy to tell you that the quality of the printed image exceeded my expectation. I printed some photos on Kodak’s Ultra 4x6 paper and the results were stunning, very vivid and sharp. Plus it dries instantly. I also printed out some pictures on regular paper and the quality was good on that as well. It took about 30 seconds to produce a high quality 4x6 which is pretty decent. I was really impressed with the image output. Now how does Kodak get away with selling ink so cheap? Well I would have to think it is because the print head is separate from the cartridge. Most cartridges have the print head already on them. By making it separate you’re saving on the cost of producing these ink cartridges.
The 7250 has a 2.4 inch LCD and there are very little buttons on the swing out panel. It makes it easier to navigate by being clean and simple. It works well when printing images from a memory card. It also makes it easy to adjust the setting as well. When using the copier function with regular paper the image came out quite clear. Now obviously if you use photo paper it’s going to yield better results. But it is definitely acceptable with regular paper. Another thing I should mention is that it has a dedicated photo tray that will handle 3 sizes:
4 × 6 in. , 4 × 7 in. HD, and 5 × 7 in. They have improved this tray as well. On the 5300 you had to push that tray in to engage it. Once it was pushed in you could not go back to regular paper without disengaging that tray. But with the 7250 that's not an issue. This is a great feature because you don’t have to get up and and manipulate the tray every time. I am glad that Kodak addressed this. The printer also has intelligent sensors to detect how much paper is in the trays
I cannot stress enough how nice it is to have a duplexer built into this printer. With the environment on the tips of every-ones mouths, it's nice to be able to double side paper, using less paper is better for the environment and most of the time you really don't need two separate pages. Another new feature that this printer has is the ability to print directly from a smartphone. It works with the Blackberry and with Iphones and Ipod Touches. All you have to do is download the application for the corresponding phone and you can be printing out nice photos straight from your mobile device! It's a nice touch.
One gripe I had with the printer is that it is a little noisy before it actually starts to print. You can hear the rollers moving around. But this is a small price to pay for a printer that produces nice images and with ink costs so low.
Another issue I wish they had addressed with this model is to include a USB printer cable! I am sure it would not have made the price go up by much! It’s not a big deal but it would have been a nice. I had a cable lying around so I just used that. But maybe the reason they don’t include the USB cable is because technically you don’t need a computer to use the printer. I also had issues getting the wi-fi to work with my setup. It would work sometimes and other times it would not. It could have been my network, but it's something to keep in mind if you plan on using this feature. I ended up plugging it directly into my router using the Ethernet port at the back of the machine. This would be the best option anyways because it's a direct connection.
Considering this printer is under the $200 dollar mark I think it makes it very attractive to the home user. Like I said before, most people would like to print in colour, but until now the ink costs don’t make it very cost effective. Now you really don’t have to think twice about printing in colour. I have used the printer quite a lot since I got it and the ink tanks have not dropped below 90%. I think Kodak has a winner on their hands. If you’re in need of a new inkjet printer, you should definitely consider Kodak on your short list.
Highly Recommended.