Kodak announces printer breakthrough

Irwin Peckinloomer wrote:
In article ,
says...
NPR's Marketplace reported shortly after 6:00 PM that Kodak
announced a new line of printers that would potentially change the
printer market. There was no technological breakthrough announced.
Instead, Kodak plans to sell printers for higher prices, and cut the
ink cost at least in half. The report added that it would allow
Kodak's printers to make 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents vs. a typical
15 cent cost using online printing services. I didn't hear any
mention of where the announcement was made or where it was reported.
I'm guessing that it will have been reported in the Wall Street
Journal and the New York Times, but I haven't spotted anything on
the NYT home page, its Technology or Business sections, so it may
have been announced too late to make it into these papers.


Still not such a deal as refilling cartridges on Canon (or other)
printers, getting you down to under 5c per 4x6.
My limited experience with refilling has been uniformly negative.
Others seem to have better results, but I just can't seem to get a
refilled cartridge to work, at all.

But isn't the print head built into the printer? Is there a
benefit to that long-term? Hope it would be a low-cost user
replaceable option.

NPR's Marketplace reported shortly after 6:00 PM that Kodak
announced a new line of printers that would potentially change
the printer market. There was no technological breakthrough
announced. Instead, Kodak plans to sell printers for higher
prices, and cut the ink cost at least in half. The report
added that it would allow Kodak's printers to make 4" x 6"
prints for 10 cents vs. a typical 15 cent cost using online
printing services. I didn't hear any mention of where the
announcement was made or where it was reported. I'm guessing
that it will have been reported in the Wall Street Journal and
the New York Times, but I haven't spotted anything on the NYT
home page, its Technology or Business sections, so it may have
been announced too late to make it into these papers.

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:40:05 GMT, Paul D. Sullivan wrote:

But isn't the print head built into the printer? Is there a
benefit to that long-term? Hope it would be a low-cost user
replaceable option.

It probably is. If the print head was built into the ink
cartridges, as is done with my HP carts, Kodak probably would have
to charge quite a bit more than $10 and $15 for their cartridges.
If the printers are like most, it only makes sense to replace print
heads for very expensive printers. These new Kodaks aren't dirt
cheap, but they're not particularly expensive either. Unless Kodak
had *really* changed direction and will make head replacement simple
and inexpensive, replacing the entire printer is probably almost as
cost effective, and you end up with not just a new print head, but a
completely new printer with a new warranty, and maybe a starter
cartridge or two tossed in. Considering the much greater longevity
of non-replaceable print heads, there should be enough savings from
lower ink costs to pay for a new printer several times over if it
comes to that.

Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since unlike
the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows total costs to
be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't include any paper, or I
should more accurately say that there is no kit. You just buy ink.
But since as you said, the new Kodak printers supposedly now use
pigment based ink, will this ink have also been formulated to work
best with existing Kodak print paper which presumably was designed
for dye based ink? Or was that a point that *you* missed?

Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely disastrous.

I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best, and
a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer life". I'm
not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do you think it's
possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents each, as
Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much less
motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk for prints,
not that I do this often, to save only a couple of cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US
That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for $19.99.
Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That puts it head and
shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or Epson in this segment for
affordability.

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

Mark² wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since unlike
the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows total costs to
be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't include any paper, or I
should more accurately say that there is no kit. You just buy ink.
But since as you said, the new Kodak printers supposedly now use
pigment based ink, will this ink have also been formulated to work
best with existing Kodak print paper which presumably was designed
for dye based ink? Or was that a point that *you* missed?

Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely disastrous.
I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best, and
a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer life". I'm
not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do you think it's
possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents each, as
Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much less
motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk for prints,
not that I do this often, to save only a couple of cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US
That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for $19.99.
Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That puts it head and
shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or Epson in this segment for
affordability.


It is very good news for everyone - unless you own or work in a photo lab.

frederick wrote:
Mark² wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since unlike
the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows total costs to
be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't include any paper, or I
should more accurately say that there is no kit. You just buy ink.
But since as you said, the new Kodak printers supposedly now use
pigment based ink, will this ink have also been formulated to work
best with existing Kodak print paper which presumably was designed
for dye based ink? Or was that a point that *you* missed?

Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely disastrous.
I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best, and
a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer life". I'm
not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do you think it's
possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents each, as
Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much less
motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk for prints,
not that I do this often, to save only a couple of cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US

That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for
$19.99. Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That puts
it head and shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or Epson in
this segment for affordability.


It is very good news for everyone - unless you own or work in a photo lab.

I work for Kodak and I can't fathom how Kodak can think that they can
take market share from HP, Epson, & Canon printers. I for one will
never purchase a Kodak printer.

Michael Calverley wrote:
frederick wrote:
Mark² wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since unlike
the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows total costs to
be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't include any paper, or I
should more accurately say that there is no kit. You just buy ink.
But since as you said, the new Kodak printers supposedly now use
pigment based ink, will this ink have also been formulated to work
best with existing Kodak print paper which presumably was designed
for dye based ink? Or was that a point that *you* missed?

Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely disastrous.
I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best, and
a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer life". I'm
not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do you think it's
possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents each, as
Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much less
motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk for prints,
not that I do this often, to save only a couple of cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US

That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for
$19.99. Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That puts
it head and shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or Epson in
this segment for affordability.


It is very good news for everyone - unless you own or work in a photo
lab.

I work for Kodak and I can't fathom how Kodak can think that they can
take market share from HP, Epson, & Canon printers. I for one will
never purchase a Kodak printer.
I can fathom it.
For the average punter, the cost of ink from HP/Epson/Canon is a painful
joke. If you read these forums, standard advice is to forget about
printing your own 6x4s - just send them to a lab - because of the crazy
price of ink. It looks like that situation may be about to change.
I wouldn't judge Kodak too harshly - just because they stuffed up the
sensor/filter on Leica's new toy doesn't mean that they get everything
wrong.

Michael Calverley wrote:
frederick wrote:
Mark² wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since
unlike the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows
total costs to be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't
include any paper, or I should more accurately say that there
is no kit. You just buy ink. But since as you said, the new
Kodak printers supposedly now use pigment based ink, will this
ink have also been formulated to work best with existing Kodak
print paper which presumably was designed for dye based ink? Or was
that a point that *you* missed?
Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely
disastrous.
I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best,
and a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer
life". I'm not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do
you think it's possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10
cents each, as Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much
less motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk
for prints, not that I do this often, to save only a couple of
cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US

That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for
$19.99. Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That
puts it head and shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or
Epson in this segment for affordability.


It is very good news for everyone - unless you own or work in a
photo lab.

I work for Kodak and I can't fathom how Kodak can think that they can
take market share from HP, Epson, & Canon printers. I for one will
never purchase a Kodak printer.

I print serious stuff on high end, large format Epson printers. But for
small stuff, it wouldn't bother me a bit to find a solution that produced
stable (pigment ink), quick and inexpensive small prints...to keep my family
off my back (always asking for more 4x6 prints than I care to run through my
bug Epson). I'm not normally a fan of much from Kodak... I don't like
their cameras...and wasn't a big fan of their film, either. But These kind
of all-purpose ink-jets are open game. -If they can produce high quality
prints...or even as good as competing all-in-ones (which wouldn't be hard at
all...), I'll buy one simply for convenience & cost savings for non-serious
printing. The quality they produce remains to be seen... I'm just glad
someone is trying to buck the trend...

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

You may be right. I have had two Epson photo printers and both
use up tons of ink cause I have to do that "head cleaning" thing
all the time. I would think it would be good to have new print
heads every time you buy ink. But maybe there is no correlation.
Maybe Epson just builds bad print heads that clog easily.

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:40:05 GMT, Paul D. Sullivan wrote:

But isn't the print head built into the printer? Is there a
benefit to that long-term? Hope it would be a low-cost user
replaceable option.

It probably is. If the print head was built into the ink
cartridges, as is done with my HP carts, Kodak probably would
have to charge quite a bit more than $10 and $15 for their
cartridges. If the printers are like most, it only makes sense
to replace print heads for very expensive printers. These new
Kodaks aren't dirt cheap, but they're not particularly
expensive either. Unless Kodak had *really* changed direction
and will make head replacement simple and inexpensive,
replacing the entire printer is probably almost as cost
effective, and you end up with not just a new print head, but
a completely new printer with a new warranty, and maybe a
starter cartridge or two tossed in. Considering the much
greater longevity of non-replaceable print heads, there should
be enough savings from lower ink costs to pay for a new
printer several times over if it comes to that.

Michael Calverley wrote:
frederick wrote:
Mark² wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:00:56 +1300, frederick wrote:

There was no point to miss. I didn't editorialize, but just
repeated what was said by the "Marketplace" reporter. I do have
doubts about the accuracy of the 4x6 price comparison, since unlike
the ink kit for Epson's little printer, which allows total costs to
be easily understood, Kodak's kit doesn't include any paper, or I
should more accurately say that there is no kit. You just buy ink.
But since as you said, the new Kodak printers supposedly now use
pigment based ink, will this ink have also been formulated to work
best with existing Kodak print paper which presumably was designed
for dye based ink? Or was that a point that *you* missed?

Some of Kodak's pro papers work well with pigment printers. Their
consumer papers (Ultima and down) are completely disastrous.
I'll have to check local stores (Staples, CC, BB, CompUSA, etc.)
for the availability of the pro papers. I assume that B&H would
have them, but most people would probably just pick up whatever's
cheap. I recall seeing some name brand paper in Staples recently
that made no mention of whether it was suitable for dye or pigment
based ink, but just gave a rating similar to good, better, best, and
a brief description, such as "use this paper for longer life". I'm
not familiar with Kodak's pro paper. If you are, do you think it's
possible to use it produce 4" x 6" prints for 10 cents each, as
Kodak claims these new printers can do?

I suspect that is the ink price. Still, with HP selling packs of
paper and 'ink' for their 4x6 picture printers at $.50 a picture
(down from $.75), that still leaves a bit of room for a good paper.
IF I could print a few 4x6 pictures for $.15 each, I would much less
motivated to drive to Sam's Club and hassle with the kiosk for prints,
not that I do this often, to save only a couple of cents/picture.

Kodak's claims appear to be legitimate.
Here's a link to the ink, as well as ink/4x6 paper packs:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQueri...q-locale=en_US

That 180 sheets AND a the 5-color, pigment ink cartridge for $17.99.
That literally blasts the competition.
The Higher quality paper pack is 135 sheets + ink cartridge for
$19.99. Still a bargain, price-wise, and it's pigment ink. That puts
it head and shoulders over any offering from HP, Canon or Epson in
this segment for affordability.


It is very good news for everyone - unless you own or work in a photo
lab.

I work for Kodak and I can't fathom how Kodak can think that they can
take market share from HP, Epson, & Canon printers. I for one will
never purchase a Kodak printer.

Don't you think you should wait until you can actually evaluate a
production version of the printer. Don't let brand bias rule your
decisions to your detriment. Not wise.