Cut the cost of printing with Kodak

No home computer is complete without a printer but with replacement ink costing a small fortune it can sometimes make you think twice about clicking the Print button. And with the new school year fast approaching, one thing you don’t want to be worrying about is how much your family printer is going to cost to run.

In this two-part series in association with Kodak, we will take a look at the thorny subject of inkjet printing costs and examine how Kodak’s range of all-in-one inkjet printers can help save money for families and those who need a printer to help with work, without compromising on quality.

If there’s one aspect of home printing that stirs up strong feelings, it’s the price of replacement ink. What’s more, head to your local computer store to buy replacement ink and it’s easy to be baffled by the huge selection of cartridges on offer.

Simplicity of choice
Thankfully, Kodak has made the whole ink-buying process both cheaper and easier by ensuring that all of its printers use the same range of ink cartridges. So, no matter which Kodak printer you have, the choice of cartridges is easy.

Where Kodak’s printers really excel is when it comes to value, and even those with modest printing requirements will be able to benefit from the low printing costs. At £6.99 (RRP), Kodak’s standard-capacity black ink cartridge is a good, cost-effective option and will last for around 425 pages.

If you tend to print a fair amount you can opt for the XL black ink cartridge, which is able to print up to 70 per cent more pages than the standard-capacity cartridge. Kodak’s inks are also available as a convenient combo pack, and at £18.98 this provides you with black and colour ink cartridges. The five-ink colour cartridge costs £11.99 and produces up to 420 pages.

There’s no compromise on quality either. Kodak uses its own patented pigment inks, which deliver vivid and realistic photos that last – a print permanence rating of more than 120 years, according to Wilhelm Imaging Research. Thanks to Kodak’s high-quality, low-cost inks an average home user could save a staggering £75 per year on replacement ink costs.

To find out exactly how much you could save by switching to a Kodak printer, see our guide on how to use the online Savings Calculator at the bottom of this article.

Features, performance and value
So, it’s good news on the ink cost front but what about the printers themselves? Kodak’s all-in-one printers offer a great mix of features, performance and value. And thanks to their built-in colour displays, setting them up is simple.

Providing print, scan and copy functions, the Kodak ESP 3250 (£69.99) is an all-in-one printer that provides everything you need in a single, compact package.

The ESP 5210 (£89.99) and ESP 5250 (£99.99) offer the same great-quality prints as the ESP 3250 but also come with built-in Wifi. With a simple setup procedure, this allows you to quickly connect the printer to your home network and print from any of your computers wirelessly. For families or those working from home, this is a great benefit.

Thanks to their built-in memory card slots, all three models make printing photos taken on your digital camera a hassle-free experience. Insert the camera’s memory card into the appropriate card slot on the printer, choose the photos you want and hit the Print button.

With lab-quality photos taking as little as 30 seconds to print, you won’t be waiting long for them to appear. Kodak’s printers are also quick when outputting text-based documents and are able to achieve speeds of up to 30ppm (pages per minute) in black and 29ppm in colour.

We’ve shown you how Kodak’s printers are great for home users and offer savings on replacement ink no matter how much you print each month. In the next issue of Computeractive we will examine whether Kodak printers can offer similar savings for users with more demanding printing needs.

Step by step guide
How to use Kodak’s online savings calculator
1 Open your web browser and head to www.printandprosper.co.uk. Next, click on the Savings Calculator link at the top-right of the site. The first step is to select the brand of printer you currently own: Epson, Lexmark, Canon, HP or Brother. Click on the appropriate make of printer and then select your model from the list that appears. If your printer isn’t listed, click on the ‘Can’t find your printer’ option at the bottom of the window and the calculator will use an industry average printer to compare the Kodak printers to.

2 The next step is to select roughly how many prints you produce each week. You can adjust the amount by moving the slider bar along the bottom; simply click and hold the slider with the left mouse button, then move it up the scale. As you move the slider, the pages for each document type (B&W Documents, Colour Documents and Photos) will adjust accordingly. In this example, we’ve specified that, on average, we produce 10 black and white, seven colour and two photo prints each week. Make your selection and click the Calculate button.

3 The final screen shows exactly how much you could save by switching to a Kodak printer, and in this example it’s calculated a saving of nearly £80 per year. Assuming an average three-year lifecycle for a printer, this equates to a sizeable total saving of £236. The calculator also displays the average yearly and weekly costs as well as the cost per print for both your current printer and the Kodak alternative. Once you’ve reviewed the savings, click on the Shop Now button to be taken direct to Kodak’s online store, or check out the Fairly Priced Ink section to learn more.