New Kodak pigment inkjets

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

It's probably old news by now, but given how sensitive a topic Kodak seems to be I wanted to pass around the news of their new all-in-one pigment inkjet printers.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=9/1441/10580&pq-locale=en_US

They're aimed for the consumer market, not the high-end, but I wonder if they might be an interesting option for people looking to do simple color prints. They're scaringly fast, in black and white as in color, and faster than many laser printers.

I'm pretty curious as to how pigments stack up in comparison to dyes. When I need digital color photos, I shoot+scan slide film, but every once in a while I'd like to print some of them. Plus it has a scanner, so I can scan my analog prints!

I use a lot of analog Kodak products, and from what I've read, Kodak is now betting their business model on these printers. I'd really, really hate to see Kodak go away, and if their product is good I'm all for buying from them.

 

[donbga]

I use a lot of analog Kodak products, and from what I've read, Kodak is now betting their business model on these printers. I'd really, really hate to see Kodak go away, and if their product is good I'm all for buying from them.

I'm not a Kodak basher but I can't understand why Kodak intoduced an inkjet printer that doesn't have seperate ink carts for the color inks.

Don Bryant

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I'm not a Kodak basher but I can't understand why Kodak intoduced an inkjet printer that doesn't have seperate ink carts for the color inks.

Don Bryant

I'm not sure, it's probably for reasons of manufacture economy. The black and the color are separated, so you can at least cater to the different uses of text printing/photo printing. And the cartridges are quite cheap too, 15$ for the 5-color, plus 7$ for the black. Compared to the 50$ I had to pay for my old Epson that's gathering dust, it's not bad.

 

[jd callow]

The market for these printers is probably not the Hybrid users found here. My hope was that Kodak would start at the top with a high quality pro line and then have the technology used therein migrate down to the consumer level. As it is I don't think there is, from the common consumer standpoint, anything to really distinguish these from any of the many low and mid level inkjet printers.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

The market for these printers is probably not the Hybrid users found here. My hope was that Kodak would start at the top with a high quality pro line and then have the technology used therein migrate down to the consumer level. As it is I don't think there is, from the common consumer standpoint, anything to really distinguish these from any of the many low and mid level inkjet printers.

I too was surprised that they did not attack the high-end market first. You'd think that it would have allowed them to figure out their technology, and then recoup expenses on the volume of consumer sales.

Au fait, what is the market like for pigment printers? Are there a lot of high-end pigment inkjets around?

 

[jd callow]

Most printers found in pro establishments (a couple years back) were either pigment or, in ultra wide format, solvent based which I believe is also pigmented. The alternative is dye and dyes tend to fade. I'm not sure what Epson uses in the k3 inks, but I believe that the 2200 was pigmented. I applaud Kodak for using pigmented inks. The output longevity should be similar or better than RA4. How the output compares is another item altogether.

 

[Ted Harris]

Kodak does play heavily in the comercial graphics world. My conversations with a couple of folks in ghe Graphics Division indicate that they are watching the wide format photographic/fine art printing market closely to see how successfully Canon and HP challenge the lock that Epson has had on this segment of the market for the past several years. My guess (and only a guess .. not based on any info) is that if Canon and/or HP start to take a significant market share away from Epson then Kodaky make think about entering the fray. Remember though, I am talking strictly about the top end of the market the Epson 2400/HP9180 being th only prosumer printer that may be of interest to Kodak ... all the others are the wide format machines .... Epson 4800 and up, Canon 5000 and up, HP z2100 and z3100.