Gizmodo

The downer here is that this was a seemingly legitimate attempt to inject price compitition into the ink-based printing market. When a pool-ful of ink costs more than taking over a small country, there's somthing seriously wrong. It's too bad the price per page isn't really any better.

Printing a shot of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog would also have been appropriate.

Not a surprise.

Greatest photo comp ever.

well, that blows. Sounded like a great idea. Too bad it was too good to be true.

I've tested them at work and they are, indeed, garbage. Print quality's awful (even worse on plain paper), they're massive, ugly (who wants bright yellow accents on their electronics), and temperamental. The first time I printed a photo on one it grabbed the first sheet of photo paper, shredded it, and spit it back out. Then it printed on the second sheet. Then when I printed a sample test page it printed it, spat it out onto the floor across the aisle, then expelled every page of paper in its tray.

They also have a very serious bug in which they don't read all the photos on the memory card. On the two cards I tested it found 10 of the 19 photos stored on one, and 11 of the 14 on another (all the other printers read every photo).

I didn't expect these things to be better than the Epsons, but I did at least expect them to be better than the Lexmarks. They couldn't even pull that off.

kodak is circling the bowl, were they using a kodak camera for the test? Theres your problem, kodak's cameras suck

Yeah. Using the Wal-mart printers are far cheaper than using an inkjet printer. The really nice ones have a photo processor that uses real photo paper so they look really good (which is probably why they're also quite cheap - those things are meant to print tons of photos).

Honestly, for print cheapness, a B&W; laser gets you higher quality text, cheaper printouts, and use the Walmart/costco/local store photo kiosks for photos...

Hi everyone, I'm a Kodak employee and have worked on this inkjet program since its inception. Popular Photography was kind enough to share some of their methodologies with us and we'd like to share our perspective on this. We hope you get a chance to try these products for yourselves.

The Kodak EasyShare All-in-One Printer was recently tested by Popular Photography Magazine, a well respected publication that provides excellent information for advanced amateur photographers who print large quantities of color photographs and enlargements at home. The audience for Kodak's new All-in-One inkjet printer is primarily households that print large quantities of black and white and color documents in addition to color photos. These consumers are frustrated by the high cost of ink and are looking for an easier way to print documents and lab-quality photos at home.

The photo-quality test of the Kodak EasyShare 5300 was done using Kodak's 3-star Photo paper. When using this basic Photo paper, the printer produces a good print at the low price of 10 cents per print. For bold colored, lab-quality prints, Kodak recommends its 5-star Ultra Premium or 4-star Premium Photo paper.

The print-yield test was done using four photos typical of advanced amateur shots, with higher color saturation and more ink coverage. Kodak's internal testing was done with dozens of photos more representative of typical consumer shots. Results were an average of 180 photos per color ink cartridge using Kodak 3-star Photo paper, and an average of 135 photos per color ink cartridge when using Kodak 4-star Premium Photo Paper.

The Kodak EasyShare All-in-One Printers enable consumers to affordably print crisp, sharp documents and Kodak lab-quality photos at home that will save consumers up to 50 percent on everything they print. The new printers provide ultimate levels of print quality and ease-of-use, while offering low total cost of ownership compared to other leading consumer inkjet printers on the market.

Steve Billow
Writing System Team Leader
Eastman Kodak Company

To put it bluntly the Popular Photography review is a bunch of crap. I have owned a 5100 for over 3 weeks now and used it extensively to print photos. I'm very experienced with the other brands of printers. I know when I'm getting good quality photos at a better price than I ever have and rest asured I am. Hurrah for Kodak! When I read a review like this and I know it to be grossly wrong it brings into question the other reviews PopPhoto has done. What is thier agenda?

I

As the author of the test report, it was my goal to determine if Kodak's claims were true, and also to find out which of the four AIO printers I tested were the best value for photo enthusiasts. Comparisons were not made against any other (or older) printers than those in the test, and the comments above pointing to older Canon, Epson, and HP units that might produce equavalent prints to the ones we determined to be "draft" quality on the Kodak are outside the scope of our test. Our determination that Kodak's 11.5-cent prints were Draft quality was a unanimous decision from the entire staff based on the image quality standards that we have set and used for years. We concluded that for $199, the Kodak 5300 is not the best value in the AIO class unless you can accept the print quality of its 3 Star paper. On the other hand, its 4 star and 5 star papers produce extremely high quality prints--but at a higher price per print.
Steve Billow from Kodak mentions above the difference between the photos we chose for our test and those that Kodak uses. Despite that difference, our yeild on the 3 star paper was rather close to Kodak's claim (165 vs claimed 180) and 11.5 cents per print is very close to 10 cents. We are more concerned with the claim that you should be able to get 135 4x6 prints from the 4 star Premium Paper Pack (when it ships!) since our yield came to only 80 prints--a much greater variation despite using the same images.
Since the article was posted, additional comments have been added pointing to software bugs that contributed to poor scanning results (notably a topic not mentioned by any current users despite Kodak admitting the problem), and 3 star paper that is still being sold in stores without the proper watermark to identify it to the Kodak printer (another contributing factor to our test results). When Kodak fixes these bugs and watermark issues, image quality may improve for both the 3 star paper and scans, but it remains to be seen whether the 4 star prints will ever reach 50% savings over the competitors, or if the use of an single cartridge to hold 5 inks will be as efficient as separate cartridges found in the competitive set. Michael J. McNamara, Executive Technology Editor, Popular Photography and Imaging Magazine.

I purchased a 5300 at Best Buy. After printing 5 4x5 photos I got "replace print head" msg. I took it back and got a new one. It did well, but after reading so many negative reviews I took it back. I may try another one in the near future. The prints looked great, but all I used was the Ultra Premium paper.
I think that I will go back and try it again. I am not concerned about the price per print.
If I take my work to Costco or Wal Mart I end up spending a lot of money on other things.
It is nice to replace the entire print cartridge for only 15.00. It now costs me nearly $100.00 for a round of ink for my HP.

The test of a new product that tries to break new ground to benefit users should be viewed as a valuable process with Kodak, the disrupter of the status-qo (high cost ink), being afforded some latitude , to succeed. It is apparent that there are some issues and bugs that potentially can be worked out by Kodak and they have an extraordinary incentive to succeed-- to consumer benefit.

Users should await Kodak's response to finetuning the product and possibly the pricing of the ink/paper because with some movement by Kodak in the right direction the potential for a breakthrough seems real. I want more competition to respond to customers needs and I say lets give Kodak an opportunity for a re-test in a reasonable amount of time-- with some potential improvement in the paper and pricing to make this thing work. long post but I say give Kodak a chance to respond and refine. Much tanks to Kodak, commenters and Popular Photography and Imaging before I blow another $250 or so...

I wrote this elswhere to MacNamara and PopPhoto... I see Gizmodo seems to believe in sensationalist headlines more than waiting for more reviews to draw more accurate conclusions:

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I definitively took objection to the review and I definitively still take objection to some of the points stated above -

" and the comments above pointing to older Canon, Epson, and HP units that might produce equavalent prints to the ones we determined to be "draft" quality on the Kodak are outside the scope of our test. "

Except that I have seen the prints from the other printers too. For the Canon, the technology of the printer in the review is exactly the same as the Pixma 4300 - chroma life, 1 picolitter, 9600×2400. They are also of the "same generation" not like one older/newer kind of implication here. I have also seen its prints.

The only thing I am not sure is if with that if Canon with the MP810 solved the issue the pixma 5000 and 4300 have that when you print in high resolution, the last two lines or so of the print (particularly in borderless) have their Y resolution reduced by half. I wouldn't be surprised if it even still has that problem, but then I haven't seen it printing a photo watching it in detail to the end.

And on to that end a couple of things that amaze me:

* I still completely disagree that this is "draft quality" of the other printers. Ill make the point by checking the Epson- the one I am missing, on the 3 star Kodak Paper.

* The fact you talk about 11.5 cents when quite frankly, 10 cents to 11.5 cents is really not a big deal considering how far and away more expensive the competition is… it's good to note, but doesn't seem like a huge deal to me witht this difference, honestly, and that doesnt' seem to be pointed out as much as "boy, Kodak was off!"

* There was no mention whatsoever that Kodak will be selling a 135 premium 4 star paper pack with a color ink for $20 aprox. The excuse is that this is not out yet as Kodak slated it for April- that's fine and dandy but it's more than customary on near all reviews I have read to cite immediate improvements coming in the near future. This is one of them. At 15 (let's say even 18 cents) per page with that paper, the Kodak is still far and away much cheaper to print on.

The issue here is, there was no mention of this in the review at all - that this pack is coming and that "we are waiting for that to come out to re-evaluate/etc."

* I find very amusing you point out the user's inability to mention scanning software issues as if that made any other inaccuracy right. The users are not paid to do reviews, so if they point out certain errors, it's all free quality assurance for the reviewer. However, It's perhaps possible this bug hasn't been observed, because in my case I have my Kodak printer connected to a Mac, and not a PC, where the bug occurs?

Perhaps the fact that there's a discrepancy between the users experience and the reviewer's, should point out to some misccomunication/misinterpretation or something else that leads to an innacurate review and should make the reviewer ask what's going on?

Given that the review used 3 star paper that cannot posibliy print correctly as designed, the least PopPhoto could do is issue the warning that the results and conclusions are invalid, pending the new watermarked paper. Yet, even knowing this, conclusions were drawn and are still being drawn on what this printer can really do.

In the end, I have a very technical background myself, and I see a Pixma with the same technology/inks/generation of the reviewed Canon Printer *and prints of the reviewed printer* which supposedly will produce in draft mode what the Kodak produces in 3 star paper - a factually false statement in my eyes. It's in the end PopPhoto's reputation that suffers as more owners come forward with their real world experience, if PopPhoto decides to cling to this. I am more than self confident in my technical ability to draw my own conclusions.

Fortunately, I see PopPhoto admitted some mis-communications and I can only hope they do update their conclusions as they receive water marked paper, and note that the Premium 4 star package is supposed to come out in the near future (i.e. this very month of April, 2007).

- Raist

I definitively took objection to the review and I definitively still take objection to some of the points stated above -

" and the comments above pointing to older Canon, Epson, and HP units that might produce equavalent prints to the ones we determined to be "draft" quality on the Kodak are outside the scope of our test. "

Except that I have seen the prints from the other printers too. For the Canon, the technology of the printer in the review is exactly the same as the Pixma 4300 - chroma life, 1 picolitter, 9600×2400. They are also of the "same generation" not like one older/newer kind of implication here. I have also seen its prints.

The only thing I am not sure is if with that if Canon with the MP810 solved the issue the pixma 5000 and 4300 have that when you print in high resolution, the last two lines or so of the print (particularly in borderless) have their Y resolution reduced by half. I wouldn't be surprised if it even still has that problem, but then I haven't seen it printing a photo watching it in detail to the end.

And on to that end a couple of things that amaze me:

* I still completely disagree that this is "draft quality" of the other printers. Ill make the point by checking the Epson- the one I am missing, on the 3 star Korak Paper.

* The fact you talk about 11.5 cents when quite frankly, 10 cents to 11.5 cents is really not a big deal considering how far and away more expensive the competition is… it's good to note, but doesn't seem like a huge deal to me witht this difference, honestly, and that doesnt' seem to be pointed out as much as "boy, Kodak was off!"

* There was no mention whatsoever that Kodak will be selling a 135 premium 4 star paper pack with a color ink for $20 aprox. The excuse is that this is not out yet as Kodak slated it for April- that's fine and dandy but it's more than customary on near all reviews I have read to cite immediate improvements coming in the near future. This is one of them. At 15 (let's say even 18 cents) per page with that paper, the Kodak is still far and away much cheaper to print on.

The issue here is, there was no mention of this in the review at all - that this pack is coming and that "we are waiting for that to come out to re-evaluate/etc."

* I find very amusing you point out the user's inability to mention scanning software issues as if that made any other inaccuracy right. The users are not paid to do reviews, so if they point out certain errors, it's all free quality assurance for the reviewer. However, It's perhaps possible this bug hasn't been observed, because in my case I have my Kodak printer connected to a Mac, and not a PC, where the bug occurs?

Perhaps the fact that there's a discrepancy between the users experience and the reviewer's, should point out to some misccomunication/misinterpretation or something else that leads to an innacurate review and should make the reviewer ask what's going on?

Given that the review used 3 star paper that cannot posibliy print correctly as designed, the least PopPhoto could do is issue the warning that the results and conclusions are invalid, pending the new watermarked paper. Yet, even knowing this, conclusions were drawn and are still being drawn on what this printer can really do.

In the end, I have a very technical background myself, and I see a Pixma with the same technology/inks/generation of the reviewed Canon Printer *and prints of the reviewed printer* which supposedly will produce in draft mode what the Kodak produces in 3 star paper - a factually false statement in my eyes. It's in the end PopPhoto's reputation that suffers as more owners come forward with their real world experience, if PopPhoto decides to cling to this. I am more than self confident in my technical ability to draw my own conclusions.

Fortunately, I see PopPhoto admitted some mis-communications and I can only hope they do update their conclusions as they receive water marked paper, and note that the Premium 4 star package is supposed to come out in the near future (i.e. this very month of April, 2007).

- Raist