LOCAL COLLEGE TEST KODAK PRINTER Vs. HP PRINTER.

[Anonymous]

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/technology/story/1103349.html
Gadgets: In a competition for your money, it’s Kodak vs. HP printers
It’s
no secret that the revenue generating portion of home printers is the
ink. It’s not uncommon to spend more on replacement ink than the
original cost of the printer.To meet the demands of consumers not
wanting to spend an endless amount of money on ink, Kodak came out with
a series of printers with cartridges considerably cheaper than most
competitors. Recently, Kodak started an ad campaign attacking its
competitors and the cost of their ink.Some highlights of the
advertising campaign (to view, go to YouTube.com) include these
statements:

– Drip by drip, your wallet is being drained every time you hit print on your inkjet printer.

– Last year America paid the big printer companies $5 billion too much for ink.

–
For what you pay to replace your inkjet printer ink this year, you
could buy a brand new printer. Switch to Kodak and stop overpaying for
ink.

Hewlett Packard contacted me about this ad campaign and
offered to send me both a Kodak printer and comparable HP unit. Also
offered was a good amount of ink and paper. HP purchased all the
supplies through a third party vendor who shipped everything directly
to me.
There are a lot of technical reasons why one printer can be
better than another but instead of getting into all of that, I decided
to put the printers on a side-by-side test.The jury I selected was my
wife’s local high school (Summit High School – Mansfield, Texas school
district) photojournalism class, which prints non-stop and probably
uses a good portion of its annual budget for ink.

The printers
were the Kodak ESP 7 and the HP Photosmart C6380 AiO. Current prices
for each at BestBuy.com are $199. Both have internal media card readers
for direct printing, so there was no need to connect either to a
computer.

Replacement ink for the Kodak cost $9.99 for the
black, $14.99 for a muli-color cartridge or $22.99 for the combo pack
of both color and back cartridges. The HP ink is $9.99 for each
individual color (cyan, magenta and yellow) or $29.99 for a color combo
pack and $9.99 for the black.The ink for both of these printers is
cheaper because, unlike many other printers, the print head is built
into the printer itself, instead of into the ink cartridge. This
results in not having to pay for a print head each time you buy an ink
cartridge.

Highlights of both printers include borderless
printing up to 8.5- by 11-inches, printing with internal memory card
slots, USB 2.0 connections to a computer or wireless. Both units also
copy and scan photos and documents have LCD displays built-in the front
of the devices.Kodak specifications state users can print up to 2400 by
9600 dpi resolution, while HP says users can print up to 600 by 600 dpi
resolution in black; up to 9600 by 2400 optimized dpi in color.The
actual cost per print is something that can and does vary from user to
user. It’s very difficult to give an actual cost per print since
different sizes use different color combinations.

Each student
was asked to log their name, date, size and time it took to print each
photo for each printer. When they completed all their printing, each
student also had to fill out a simple survey, with questions about
which printer had better results in quality, speed and what they liked
and didn’t like about each printer.

Of the 16 surveys turned in,
13 felt the HP printed the best quality photos. For speed, nine said
the HP printed faster and when asked which printer they liked the best
overall, 10 choose the HP.Alexis Escobedo said, “The Kodak printer, in
just a short time, had a dirty head and left lines, while the HP stayed
true to the image and had constant good quality.” She added that she
“liked the colors in the first few prints and the ease of selecting a
photo.”

Another student, Monika Hoang, preferred the HP and
pointed out she prefers “quality over speed.”I couldn’t agree more with
that reasoning. Unless it’s drastic (minutes, etc.) I would never
choose one printer over another based on the speed.When your print is
hanging on a wall and it’s poor quality, are you going to tell
everyone, “The print isn’t good, but it only took 10 seconds to
print?”Hoang did add that while preferring the HP, “I thought the Kodak
was easier to use.”Victoria Hensley preferred the Kodak but also agreed
with the preference of quality over speed. She put on her survey, “I’d
buy the Kodak because of the quality of the prints. The quality of the
print is what counts, not the speed.” Hensley thought the colors of the
Kodak were better along with being easier to use.The bottom line shows
the students preferred the HP to the Kodak, but what did it cost? As
mentioned, the cost per print is a difficult thing to calculate from
user to user.What’s more important, cost, speed or quality? For this
group of young aspiring photojournalists, they chose quality. Do you
choose print speed, cost or quality? That’s your decision, but
obviously there are options.

[Author]

June 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM