14 DAY TRIAL // Watch out HP, Kodak is storming the consumer inkjet industry with a new lineup of multifunctional printers, but more importantly with a new type of ink, bound to set new standards in this sector.
Kodak engineers knew that if they wanted to rumble with companies like HP they had to come up with something good and so they did.
The key component of their Kodacolor technology is a new type of pigment-based ink that yields vivid color prints with an extraordinary fade resistance of up to 100 years. This means that the photos you print today will have the same qualities 50 years from now, when you'll show them to your grandchildren.
The Kodacolor also includes micro-porous photo papers, color and image science and Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) print head.
"To fully realize the capabilities of the Kodacolor pigment ink technology requires a rapid-dry, high-quality photo paper. We designed a family of microporous photo papers that provide prints unsurpassed in overall quality, durability and stability. As in many other areas, we broke the paradigm of requiring the consumer to select the photo paper and print mode setting in order to achieve a real photo. Each of our photo papers has a unique machine readable water mark on the back that is used to optimally, and automatically, configure the printer to give the best result - every photo is a Kodak lab-quality photo," Susan Tousi, inkjet R&D director at Kodak, says.
This also means that users won't be able to manually select the print quality and the type of paper, which of course implies that in order to get best results you have to buy Kodak paper.
Kodak also claims that their technology allows customers to print more with less money than conventional products. Their figures claim that for every 15 dollars spent on color ink, the user gets 105 photo prints; that's more than double compared to their competitors. Similarly, for every 10 dollars spent on black ink, the user gets the same ratio, 349 pages from Kodak and 145 pages from the competition.
Business Week expert Steve Hamm thinks that if "Kodak pulls this off, it could pose a huge challenge to the $50 billion printer industry, which relies on a bait-and-hook strategy, often discounting the machines and making most of its profits on expensive replacement cartridges."
Let's take a look at Kodak's 3 new printers that take advantage of the new technology.
The Kodak Easyshare 5100 All-in-One Printer ($149.99 US MSRP), featuring print, scan and copy capabilities, delivers high-quality documents and photos for users who enjoy printing without limitations. The device can print and copy up to 32 pages per minute in black and 22 pages per minute in color, and print photos from Pictbridge-enabled cameras without involving a PC.
The Kodak Easyshare 5300 All-in-One Printer ($199.99 US MSRP) builds on the 5100's features by offering a 3-inch color LCD display that enables photo viewing and cropping directly from the printer. Memory card slots provide an additional quick and simple way to print digital pictures without a PC.
The Kodak Easyshare 5500 All-in-One Printer ($299.99 US MSRP) is the perfect solution for home-office users and connected families who want to do it all with no constraints. In addition to sharing the features of the 5100 and 5300 printers, the 5500 has fax functionality and includes a 2.4-inch color LCD display, an automatic document feeder and a duplexer attachment.
The first two will be available in April 2007, while the Easyshare 5500 is expected to begin shipping May 2007
