Kodak ESP 5250 All-in-One Printer

I purchased this printer in February 2010 and have used it regularly for about a year. I replaced a Canon Pixma two-sided printer which did a WONDERFUL job of printing high quality photos and documents, but I was being robbed blind by Kodak due to their high ink costs and the fact that the cartridges seemed to last a matter of weeks. I bought this Kodak printer specifically to test Kodak's theory of lowering ink costs. Kodak is telling the truth. This printer will dramatically lower your ink costs. My household includes a wife and two small children, and most of our printing needs consist primarily of: -day to day document printing (quality not really an issue) -kids printing pictures from the internet (heavy ink usage, cheap paper) -occasional photos on glossy kodak paper (perhaps 2 or 3 pics a month) I view this sort of printing as "real" printing, which I bet most families do. For this sort of situation this printer is IDEAL. In the year that I have had this printer, I have replaced the color cartridge once, and the B&W twice. That's at least a third the ink usage of the canon, as well as a fraction of the cost for ink. The quality of the printing is perfectly fine, I have no complaints. Day-to-day printing is flawless. Printing on photo glossy paper is excellent, I would say slightly lower quality than the Canon, but reasonable. I don't print much in the way of archival photos, but if I do I tent to send them to a service for printing. This printer also has a fully functional scanner, which also works quite well. It includes a feature to automatically detect multiple photos placed on the scanner tray. Additionally, being a wireless printer, I can scan or print from any computer in the house. Here are my minor gripes, none of which should stop you from purchasing: 1. The power cord is a laptop-style cord with a brick in the middle. The connector end that attaches to the printer is very loose and poorly fitting, and if you move the printer it will likely disconnect on you. I actually contacted Kodak thinking this was a manufacturing problem with this unit. They sent me a new cord but it has the same issue. If it's a manufacturing issue it is with the connector on the printer itself. 2. The wireless connection configuration works fine, but it's not obvious that it's case sensitive, and it took me some trial and error and frustration before I realized there was a caps lock button. If you're frustrated by ink costs, get this printer and you will not be sorry.

The printer never enabled me to complete the set up process as once I powered it on it just allowed me to select the language and country. Then powered off. I tried so many times to unpluge its power cord, wait and then on back again. Same thing happened many times. I tried Kodak website and as it was late at night and no customer service was available, I tried live chat but I found that even the Kodak system does not support Windows Explorer 9 nor the Google Chrome browsers. Only the earlier version. Next morning I called and from the first moment I talked to the Rep. I was realized from his questions and language that he will never be able to fix it. And he kept asking me questions about personal information, which took 10 minutes and finally he did not give me any instructions to try to fix it other than power it off and then on again which I'd done several times already... Then he asked me to ship it back to Kodak and promised another one which would be other waste of a couple of weeks till they recieve mine and then send another. I refused that. I just returned it to Amazo.com and will look for a better manufacturer who may be expected to have tested their products before selling them. Much waste of time and hassle!! An Update (a day later): I just read and heard that as Kodak has moved most of its customer service to out of the states locations to lower its expenses, its customer service has become that level. I now went to a "Brother" All in One Copier. I'm certain I'll be happy with it for all what I've read about it and its cost.Its Model is (MFCJ615w wireles All in One with a Fax) Wonderful features, price & Ink cost as you just change the one color that runs out first. Also it has an Auto Document Feeder Plus a 100 sheet tray that keeps your paper away from dust. It also features Scan to OCR which enables converting hard copy documents into soft copies ready for editing. Hope that helps.