Kodak ESP7 All-in-one

Guide price: £245.00

The latest compact all-in-one printer from Kodak. Kodak have gone back to a black livery with just the corporate orange stripe for its latest printers and it looks quite plain but classy, there are also curves and no sharp edges, which is good! It is quite a big case but it packs quite a punch with what is squeezed inside.
This model is also a scanner and a very good one at that, more later on its scanning abilities. WiFi is built in, as is a full range card reader, a pull up angled 3" full colour LCD panel( very useful for preview your photos on your memory card) and two trays for a lots of different sizes of printing paper. The control buttons have been kept to an absolute minimum and the important ones light up in a very attractive blue. (I said it looked classy and this adds to the effect) So Kodak have definitely come up with a printer you can have out on display next to your computer.
Start up is swift, though rather noisy, with various grinding and squeaking noises to accompany the preparation for printing process. The big bright high resolution screen comes to life and the printer is ready for action in under 2 minutes. The LCD screen shows WiFi status, ink levels, paper levels and is used for viewing your photographs via the card reader and for viewing printing and scanning functions.

Printing is very brisk and the results are truly outstanding, colours are entirely natural and realistic and very faithful to your computer screen view, or camera view. Kodak have always been great with colour reproduction and this ESP7 does not disappoint in that department, print quality really is flawless, with no banding, blotching or visible dots. This printer really does mean you can have your own photo printing lab at home! 6 x 4" appeared out of the printer bone dry after 35 seconds and a full colour borderless A4 print at best quality, is ejected in around 90 seconds.

High printing costs are also another feature that Kodak has conquered, with cartridges costing under Ł17 for both cartridges, black(Ł6.99) and colour(Ł9.99) Kodak have not followed the trend of producing separate colour cartridges, so it is possible if you want to print lots of photographs with a large proportion of say yellow, to run out of that colour, yet still have plenty of magenta and cyan left, which you cannot use! In testing though this has not happened as Kodak have thoughtfully made the colour cartridge of much higher capacity than its competitors. The low cost of running this machine makes it very attractive to any amateur photographer! I found it capable of printing a huge amount of full colour borderless A4 and 6 x 4" prints before the colour cartridge needed to be replaced.

Scanning performance is also a bit of a revelation, as it is both quiet and incredibly quick. Photographs scanned were reproduced perfectly, with no nasty colour casts or artifacts. So long as you select the scanning subject correctly (photo or document) the Kodak does the rest, of course it can just be a straight copy or a scan to your computer. Photographs were scanned at original size and appeared on the desktop as JPEG file s@ 300dpi, perfect for printing. Documents were also nicely reproduced in around 40 seconds. A dialogue box comes up on your computer, showing scanning progress and then a box asks you where you want the scan to end up on your computer. Total simplicity!

WiFi performance was also tested and I found it to find a protected WiFi signal quickly and easily, almost anywhere in the house. Making it connect was a little harder though! I did find on the Kodak website that there was a fimrware software upgrade for downloading, which I duly did and was meant to correct WiFi connection issues, with Apple and PC computers. Connection was then easy, you just use the Network Wizard which searches for a signal, you select the your network, enter your Security string and then the Kodak does the rest! Easy!

Along with wireless connectivity, there is also an Ethernet socket, USB (no USB cable included in the package, please note though!) Full duplexing for double sided printing and a front mounted USB camera connection with Pictbridge. Full Kodak photo software is included.

Main Outstanding Features:

Built-in, secure, Wi-Fi printing or Ethernet connection to get the most out of your home computer network
Dedicated photo paper tray—in as little as 28 seconds1 you can print KODAK Lab Quality2 4 × 6 in. (10 × 15 cm) borderless photos that last a lifetime. (100 years)
Print crisp, sharp documents fast—up to 32 pages per minute in black and 30 pages per minute in color
The most intelligent paper tray system in the consumer inkjet printing industry automatically adjusts settings for document or photo paper—a dedicated photo paper tray automatically detects paper width to support various paper sizes (i.e 4 × 6 in., 4 × 6 in. HD–16:9 ratio, 5 x 7 in.) and a built-in sensor automatically detects the amount of paper in the tray before printing
Built-in duplexer saves paper by making double-sided printing easier than ever
High quality CIS scanner will quickly scan documents or multiple pictures simultaneously and the software will create separate image files automatically
Make great pictures even better with KODAK All-in-One Home Center Software—with features like facial retouch, you can whiten teeth and even reduce the appearance of wrinkles and blemishes
One-touch color copy without a PC

Hilary's Conclusion:
Seriously impressive performance all round along with truly affordable running costs! Highly recommended as a 'Best Buy' Totally brilliant!

Update:
Kodak have just reduced the price of this printer by Ł100! This means this printer is available for under Ł150!