Like many computer users, over the last 10 years I have probably purchased about 4 or 5 different printers. Why, you may ask? Well, every time my ink runs out, I am faced with sticker shock at my local office retailer. I call that PPPD (Post Printer Purchase Depression). The prospect of spending $50-70 on a full complement of ink replacement cartridges makes the brand new $50-70 printer seem like a really good idea. It seemed wasteful, and drastic, but financially made sense. There had to be a better way.
Kodak, whose name is synonymous with print quality, released a new printer for the SOHO (small office, home office) community that will attempt to alleviate this disjointed situation. They set out to design printers with the lowest ink (pigmented inks) replacement costs in the industry. So when you go back to buy new ink, you won’t have to think about replacing the printer you love, for the printer that is on sale.
The Kodak ESP Office 6150 All-in-One Printer is an addition to their current suite of all-in-one products. It uses some of the same internal components, but beefed up options and gave customers even more ROI (return-on-investment), which is most important for the SOHO market.
Some of the features are:
- 200-page high-capacity paper tray
- 2.4 in. LCD (color) display
- Wi-Fi (802.11 b, g, n)
- 30-page Auto Document Feeder (A4, Legal);
- 100-page fax memory
- Mac, Windows (XP, Vista, 7)
- 10-Mbps Ethernet
- USB 2.0
- borderless photos up to 8.5 × 11 in. (US letter size), and (A4 size);
- documents up to 8.5 × 14 in. (legal size)
- 4 × 6 in. photos in as little as 29 seconds
- documents up to 32 pages per minute in black and 30 pages per minute in color
Unboxing
Right out of the box, you can see the printer is moderately sized. It isn’t a huge monstrosity like some of the other office printers out there. It fit perfectly on my desk, and the design/color were unobtrusive. My first impression of the printer is that it doesn’t look like a cheap baby-office printer. No doubt, it has professional appearance. The single yellow line on the black case was a nice touch.
One big pet peeve of mine is the gadget trend of putting bright blue led lights on the front of things like TV’s, routers, and printers. Companies have to consider that these devices will sometimes be in living rooms, bedrooms, or sitting close to the user where the blue light can be really distracting, especially in a dark room. The 6150 uses one for the wi-fi indicator, and I wish there were a way of turning these off. It isn’t super bright, but I think it should be changed.
One interesting thing I noticed was that they used a separate removable tray head for the ink cartridges to sit in. That was really smart because over time, ink trays tend to get messy as you are on your umpteenth replacement cartridge.
The front panel can also be adjusted, angled or flat, depending on what you prefer.
Setup
After a brief setup of the cartridges, tray, and power, it’s on with the show.
The menus are very simple to navigate through, and the printer setup process is good.
I opted for wi-fi, since most SOHO users will go this route. I connected using a bunch of common wireless routers (Linksys, D-Link, and Apple Airport) without any problems. I then used WEP, WPA, and WPA2 security encryption, again without any problems.
Not only that, but it supports 802.11 b, g, or n! Those who have had a difficult time making your wireless network N-only because of that one wireless printer, this will solve it.
Wi-fi allows you to put this printer anywhere, and that is a huge benefit. I didn’t have a chance to connect the Blackberry or iPhone to the printer, but there seems to be a function for that.
There is a quick print and scan alignment process, and then you are fully configured on the printer.
Computer Setup
As far as the computers go, you will need to install the software that came along with the printer, or download the latest suite from the Kodak website. I really wish all manufacturers would make their devices Bonjour capable out of the box, although I do understand that these all-in-one printers need more software for scanning, faxing, etc..
My only gripe is when you have to repeat the install process on every machine in your SOHO, it become quite tedious and prevents the visitor with their laptop to just quickly print something out. For example, if you are using Windows 7, the suite is several hundred MB (Megabytes). So, when you are at grandma’s house setting up the printer, the horrible internet speeds she gets will make the process take a while. That being said, the software provided is very good, and you will get use out of it.
Printing
OK, so now all THAT stuff is done, how well does it work? The answer is, it performs very well. Despite what some reviewers have said, the 6150 is quiet. My HP printer is super loud, and while I wouldn’t have this in a baby’s room, I was able to print at night in the office, one door down the hall from the kids, and they didn’t flinch.
I found print speed good, color quality was solid and not overly saturated, and photo printing was gorgeous. The 6150 comes with photos paper to try, and I would recommend using Kodak paper… just a personal preference. The trick with home photo printing always comes down to the settings for paper size and type. Kodak makes a point of telling you the settings for best results.
Another cool feature was the automatic double-sided printing. This allows you to print on both sides without having to turn the paper around. I used this for text documents a lot, and I was very surprised to see this on an inexpensive SOHO printer.
Scanning
It was very easy to scan documents and pictures with this printer. The scanning bed is large, scanning is quick, and the software menu allows you to scan and send the documents directly to a computer on your network. Scanning can also auto separate documents into multiple files. There is an auto-feed tray on top, which takes up to about 30 pages, and works well. If you are going to scan anything, I always tell people to get one with a top auto-feed tray.
Faxing
You still fax? Seriously?
Yeah, faxing was easy too. Let’s move on.
Wrap-up
Likes:
- Low ink replacement cost
- Wi-fi printing
- 802.11 N support
- HUGE paper tray (about 200 pages)
- Top auto-load feeder
- Quiet printing
- Easy setup
Dislikes:
- Required to install software
- Front panel blue indicator light
Overall, this printer is a really big win with me. I think it has all the right features, the engineering and layout of the trays, buttons, and software were clearly thought out. And because of the lower cost of replacement ink, you will truly appreciate the total cost of ownership being less.
Take a look for yourself, and let us know what you think!
[starreviewmulti id=4 tpl=46]
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