Kodak ESP7250

Kodak breaks with the standard model here and has given us an expensive printer but one that is economical to use. It's therefore aimed at those who get through a lot of ink. This all-in-one inkjet ESP7250 is at the high-end of Kodak's range. Designed for printing photos and office documents, its positioning highlights its capacity to print straight from an iPad or iPhone. A trend that has taken root across the HP range.

Hardware

It prints, scans and copies in Wi-Fi mode and networking is compatible with iPhones, iPads and the iPhone touch. Nor do you necessarily need to link it up to your computer as there's a card reader on the front of the machine. With a 6.1 cm colour screen that you control with a scroll, navigation through the menus is fairly simple and intuitive.

Two paper loaders at the front of the printer allow for easy loading of photo paper (up to 40 sheets) and office documents (maximum of 100 sheets).

There are two separate cartridges, one for black and the other for colour.


Speed:

We are unfortunately quite some way off the pace of the speeds announced in the manufacturer tech spec. On our test documents, we timed it at 6 pages per minute (ppm) for colour docs, whereas Kodak is claiming 30 ppm. For black and white, it went up to 9 ppm (still a long way off the 32 ppm announced by Kodak). If you compare this to our refence printer, the Canon MP640 which prints 9 ppm in colour and 13 in black and white, the Kodak looks rather average.


A4 photo prints take 2 minutes (against 58 seconds for the Canon MP640) and 10 x 15 cm prints take 47 seconds (27 seconds for the Canon). Once again, these times are neither good nor bad, just average.

Quality

The Kodak ESP7250 has two separate cartridges. The results for photos are unexceptional. Droplets are visible and details lack precision. The colours lack brightness.



Note, office doc prints are not always usable. We scanned one page from the printer and noted traces on the numbers 1,2 and 3 and on the left side of the graph (see image below). The traces are generated by the paper passing through the printer (without fingers touching it). There's obviously some problem with the ink not drying. However, two minutes after printing, we used an orange highlighter on it and this didn't cause any traces. Once the ink has dried, it holds firm, even when subjected to a damp felt pen.



Scanner and copier

The CIS type scanner offers resolution up to 2400 dpi. It's on a par with an average printer these days: six seconds for preview, just four for a 75 dpi scan and six seconds for 300 dpi.

The scanner isn't however as precise as it could be. Not as good as the Epson Stylus SX525WD scanner, you can see that some detail is lost here, the child's face isn't as sharp and there's a strong shift towards red. The scanner will however be ok as long as you're not looking for excellent quality.

Copies (B&W) take twenty two seconds. For colour, things take a little longer: 26 seconds. It's speed merchant.


Energy consumption & Noise levels

In terms of energy consumption, this multifunction printer is pretty comparable to the current competition: 14 watts. Standby consumption is too high however: 7 watts really does seem a lot when some models (the Canon MP640 for example) dip under the 1 W barrier.

We scored it at 53 dB (A) for noise with peaks at 60 dB (A). You couldn't say it's noisy but it's not one of the quietest machines either.



Cost per page

Kodak has kept its promises here. Cost per page is very much under the average: 4.2 pence compared to the 9.5 pence per page for the Epson PX810FW, or the 11 pence per page for the Lexmark S605 (XL cartridges) and 10 pence for the new generation of HP printers (still XL).

Note we had a look inside one empty cartridge to see: there was still a lot of ink in there. Best not to leave these chemicals in the office bin and even less throw them out to be disposed who knows where.

ISO lifespan for text

Cartridge	Price	ISO lifespan	Cost per page
Colour	(see below)	415	(see below for total cost)
Black	(see below)	442	(see below for total cost)