Digital Camera Review

February 6, 2007

Kodak enters the desktop printer market, plans to rumble with HP

Filed under: Array — @ 10:43 pm

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals

With traditional film sales all but dead, and the intense competition in the digicam space, the once formidable Kodak is hoping to find success and newfound revenue in that teensy little $50 billion market known as the print industry. Of course, Kodak has been selling photo printers for a while now, but this new launch is a full-on assault on the king of printing: HP. Kodak’s secret is to skip over the whole bait and switch model of most printer sales, where everybody discount their printers heavily, and make it all back on exorbitant ink prices. Kodak will be charging reasonable prices for its three new EasyShare All-in-One printers, the 5100, 5300 and 5500 (pictured) which can print copy and scan for $150-$300, but the ink costs are at $10 for a black cartridge and $15 for a five color cartridge. With ink about half the price of competitors — Kodak’s secret is a print technology that doesn’t require the print head to be in the cartridge, just ink — Kodak is hoping consumers will feel free to print more photos and in turn buy even more ink from the big red K. The technology also supposedly produces prints that can last up to 100 years, and will be making it into stores with these new EasyShares in March. Who knows if this will be enough to give Kodak a fighting chance in the consumer print world, but even if all that results is a speedy and bloody price war, we sure wouldn’t be complaining.