Customer Reviews

Kodak ESP-3 Easyshare All In One Printer (1629054)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(90)

 

 

I previously owned a HP500 all in one printer before choosing the Kodak Easyshare ESP3. One reason was because the ink was too expensive and the Kodak seemed like a bargain because of the cheaper ink it offered. The black cartridge will run you $[...] and the color $[...]. I was paying around $[...] prior on ink. Making the total cost for the printer and ink around $165.00. BUT WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU is that this printer will only print those superior pictures on Kodak paper. It has a built in scanner that scans the back of the photo paper and automatically sets the image quality. The photo paper will run you around $9.00 bucks for regular glossy (4x6 @ 100 sheets)or the premium quality runs around the same price but you only get 60 4x6 sheets. (premium is better as it is heavier paper and doesn't fold as badly as the regular ones) Forget about using cheaper or other brands of photo paper, Kodak makes it so that they come out horrible. NOT ONLY is that a way to corner the market and make up for the cheap cost of the ink, one very very bad con is that you can forget about using regular non-photo paper. For black and white documents it's acceptable but color pictures are horrible on regular paper. Again Kodak offers something called ULTIMATE PAPER that makes the color quality acceptable. I tried using three different types of paper and only the Kodak paper was acceptable and not really good crisp bright color quality. My HP 500 was way better. This printer works as if it's already built in to work on it's own accessories and nothing else. This printer does not let you control the quality at all. It's set to AUTO PAPER even though i'm using an ultra bright white non kodak brand it will not let you adjust the type of paper you are using. So if you think that this printer is a simple easier way to go...think twice about it. For me since I like to print color copies on non-photo paper way more than print pictures I pretty much hate it because i'm limited on only using the Kodak Photo paper which is more expensive than other brands. The machine IS loud and when the paper comes out is bends, curls, or folds because the ink dries slowly on the regular paper. So expect to pay alot more for the accessories that does not come with this product because it pretty much rules out trying to use cheaper other brands. A side note: I also hate the paper tray because it's all black and makes it hard to load and the flap that holds it in place is very flimsy as if it's going to break off.

UPDATE:
Since my initial post it's unanimous: THIS IS THE WORST PRINTER EVER. I'm going to take it out in the yard and destroy it with a mallot and put it on youtube. Since I last wrote this review (I've had more time to play with it) I've had to call customer service and get new printer heads...TWICE. I just got my second printer head today and because it went out it drained the newly bought ink while I was doing their diagnostics. So now they tell me they'll have to send new ink for it tomorrow even though I had told them that it looked like it had drained the ink they said it would go back to normal. The problem was that the printer head could not detect the ink levels. I've been out of a printer for two weeks because of this. Now another day. Also when you can get customer service everytime I called I got someone from another country and you couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. It got so bad I asked them if they could tell me if there is a Kodak model other than this one that no one had many complaints on, they couldn't give me one. Also to reply to the man who said he didn't understand why I would do this and do that, it's because I use regular paper indstead of photo paper to save on the space for book scrapping, like it's really any of his business what I do with my own paper anyway. BEWARE BEWARE go with lexmark or an hp.

My first printer was the FIRST color inkjet made by HP, I think it was the 750C or something... Anyway, I have used A LOT of inkjet printers at work & at home in the last 20 years and can sort-out the riff-raff from the keepers pretty quickly.

This printer was definitely near the bottom of my printer experiences...

THE BAD:

1) I could tell right-away by the flimsy paper tray, cheap removable printhead design & generic software interface that this purchase was a mistake. But I gave it a whirl, hoping to save &&& on ink, installed the ink cartridges & turned it on...

2) After 10 cleaning cycles that left my ink levels at half-full we were finally printing Yellow & Cyan, but Magenta and Black were hit and miss and never did flow steady... Part-way through the picture a color would "go missing" only to return momentarily at some point later.

3) You can only put about 10 photo-sheets in the paper tray reliably, and the last sheet alwasy pulls-up crooked... The printed pages drop down onto the new paper stack, so you cannot see how many sheets you have left until the last page feeds-in crooked & jams... The paper holder sticks WAY out from the base & takes up considerable space.

4) Cheap Ink but EXPENSIVE PAPER! The software won't let you manually adjust any paper settings. Unless you use KODAK PAPER, you cannot print photo-quality prints! WHAT! You can give-away the ink, but if it only works with paper that is $1.00 per sheet, we're not biting, Kodak. What were you thinking??? A special eye looks for special marks on Kodak paper and will not turn-on photo quality unless it "sees" Kodak paper. I think other makers have an "easy" setting that reads bar codes on their branded paper, but you can over-ride those settings & still print photos on generic photo paper. All that advertising wasted, Kodak, I will probably never buy another printer from you in my lifetime...

PLUSES:
I bought it from a store that had a no hassle return policy even though I had installed the ink cartridges & wasted half the ink trying to get it to print. They guy in the return department looked like he had seen plenty of these come his way because he knew right-away what to do.

I FOUND AMAZON! Well, I realized I was a fool for not looking here first before making a purchase. If I had, I could have steered clear of this mistake and purchased my next printer at a better price. Amazon rocks for letting us warn other folks about bad products. Most box stores delete negative reviews whereas Amazon realizes you will only buy a better product.

One star is too many.
My kodak esp 3 printer never worked. Kodak's lack of tech support is absoloutely horrible. This printer ended up being thrown away and I got a lexmark all in one that I am THRILLED WITH.
My brand new printer had a hardware error. The seller offered to accept it back with a 20.00 restocking fee. So after all the shipping charges I would have gotten back around 10.00. Not worth it. When I called "tech support" the woman from a million miles away read me the online website inistructions. I had been there followed those instructions to the letter. I told her that. She said that was all she could do. She offered to let me send back this printer, Kodak would send me a refurbished one. No thanks after the "support" I had received I could only imagine if I had trouble with the next. So it was thrown in the trash and I got a lexmark.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS PRINTER!!!!

I bought this to save on ink. After a few months it is mechanically broken. Before it broke it was a pain to use.

- Takes up to 60 seconds to print the first sheet. I'm not sure what it is doing during the ramp up time, just makes all kinds of noise and is moving stuff around. Compared to my last two Lexmark printers it is horrible. My Lexmark printer prints the first sheet within 5-10 seconds.
- Keeps making noise and clacking around after prints....who knows.
- The sheet tray doesn't properly hold standard 8.5x11" paper, so it jams a lot and almost always grabs two or three sheets of paper when trying to print.
- Support. What support. It is all self serve, no way to get assistance or warranty work.

I work in a media center, so I've seen many printers. I needed one I could make some quick copies on at home, so I bought this one. It is absolutely the worst printer I've ever seen. I, too, fell for the cheap ink ploy. I was paying about $70 for a set of cartridges for my HP Photosmart-which, incidentally is a great printer. Had it not been for the need for quick copies at home, I wouldn't have wasted my money on another printer. The Kodak jams all the time, is very, very slow at printing even black and white copy, and doesn't do all that great at color photos either. I am so disappointed, I wish I would have just paid a few more bucks for a HP all in one.

I am VERY DISAPPOINTED with this printer. Unless I performed inkhead cleanings frequently, it printed blank pages, especially if I didn't print for a couple of weeks. I used my first Kodak printer for about 2 months before it didn't work at all, and Kodak sent me a new one. The second one that they shipped to me didn't work at all from the get go. Now I am waiting for the third one to arrive. Wish I had never purchased it to begin with.

It seems that you either get one that works or you get one that wants to give you hours of grief. after several hours of trying to get this thing to print anything other than a test page I am calling it quits.The red color never worked and ink seemed faded at best. I bought mine at Ballmart and am taking it back tomorrow. Why I went with something other than an HP I'll never know. I took a chance on a low price printer and lost.

Pros- Looks well built, is good looking, simple set up.
Cons- Software glitched the first install, slow to print, never printed anything in color correctly despite hours of nozzle cleaning, alignments and other maintenance fixes.

Beware! This is the biggest piece of junk ever. I have nothing but problems with this. EVERY time I try to use the printer I get error messages. I have to reboot, reconfigure, troubleshoot, etc. Seriously, each time I try to use this. I have contacted Kodak several times but the only help I get is the same in the help section on the program. They wont help other than that. Nor are they concerned that the product SUCKS! I am on my 4th set of ink cartridges and I have only printed 2 photos and about 20 pages of black/white documents. The rest of the ink was wasted on test pages and pages that came out unlegible. I thought Kodak was a reputable brand but now I see the truth. No more Kodak for me ever. No more printers, cameras...NO MORE! Going back to Lexmark which has always been good. I wouldnt even give this 1 star but I had to.

*** Update February 22, 2009 ***
New rating: 1
(The Amazon site won't let me change the actual rating so the best I can do is put in this comment.)
After 9 months the printer started malfunctioning. With full ink cartridges it would print horribly as though it was out of ink. I had an extended warranty but was told they can't get parts to fix it. Fortunately I was allowed to exchange for a different make. Until now all of my comments below held true - but reliability with this unit seems to be a problem.

*** Original Review***
I have had the printer for about 2.5 months now and haven't had any problems. Had it set up and working in a matter of minutes.
Some other reviewers seem unhappy about its lack of bluetooth or that it doesn't have a USB cable in the box. This didn't bother me because I wasn't expecting it to be bluetooth compatible, and I knew it didn't have the USB cable in the box.
Pros:
- Easy set up. Installed drivers from CD, plugged in USB cable, worked like a charm.
- Prints fast
- I love having scanning and copying capabilities built in. Have used both and it worked just fine.
- Inexpensive ink
Cons:
- Louder than most printers (I have seen other reviewers comment on this as well)
- The paper tray design is a little weird. The output paper almost lies on top of the input paper. Seems to work fine for smaller print jobs but my guess is that it wouldn't for larger print jobs.
- Copying/scanning must be done one page at a time. But this is typical of most home printers.
- Would be nice to have automatic duplex printing. But most home printers don't.
So if you're looking for a high end professional office printer for high volume copying, duplex printing, etc., then this probably isn't the printer for you. If you need a decent home printer/scanner/copier it works great.

I've used this printer for about six months now and I love it!
The Pros:
The print quality is great. Not as good as an Epson 6 ink system, but nearly.
The print speed is great.
The ink usage is minimal and the price of the cartriges is cheaper than anything else out there (name brand). I'm told the trick to getting more out of your cartriges is two fold: 1) leave your printer on. Everytime it's turned off and then on again, it charges or primes itself and this uses ink. It will do this occassionally anyway, so there's no need to make it do this more than necessary. 2) Print something daily. Ink dries up and the nozzles clog with infrequent use. A little printing every day is the best way to keep things flowing.
The Cons:
This printer is very difficult to set up with some Windows (I have XP Home). The instructions clearly state to NOT let windows set the printer up, but to do it with the included software. Good luck. It took me 48 hours to get it working properly and I'm not sure at what point it started working (what did I do right?!). It should be said, however, that Kodak is not alone in this area. My last two Epson printers were the same way. Difficult to set up but well worth it afterward.
Also, some parts of the printer seem flimsy, where the power cord plugs in, for example. However, this has not affected my use of the printer, so it's barely a "con."
Finally, the last "con" I have is how the paper loads. I don't like it having to sit lying down with the tray out. This takes much more room than I'd like. I much prefer the paper be loaded from the back, like an Epson.

I've printed lots and lots of full page pictuers, text, photo albums, collages, signs, etc. over the last six months and I've only used 3 black cartridges and 3 color. At the cheap price these run, I'll be suggesting Koday printers to anyone and everyone who's looking.