The Kodak ESP 5 is one of the sleekest multifunction printers around, its combination of gloss and matte black casing, curved front and Kodak-yellow stripe making it a welcome addition to any office or study.
The 422x298x177mm Kodak ESP 5, weighing 5.4kg, also boasts a 3in LCD screen – almost twice as large as the LCD on the HP Photosmart C4350, for instance.
As well as the ability to print from a PC, the Kodak ESP 5 allows you to print straight from a memory card or digital camera with PictBridge technology. Once you've inserted a card, you can preview photos onscreen and use the navigation buttons to identify which you want to print, plus quality, number and colour effect.
MS, XD, SD and CF cards are supported and you can print images ranging in size from 4x6in up to A4. When printing from a camera, you have to choose print options on the camera rather than the Kodak ESP 5's preview screen, however.
UIn our tests, using everyday office paper we produced a full page of graphics in normal mode in one minute and 12 seconds, or one minute and 28 seconds for best quality. A draft print took 25 seconds. While speeds are good, we were less pleased with some of the results. Printing colour reports on plain paper produced very drab pages.
On photo paper, however, images came alive. A best-quality A4 print using Kodak's Ultra Premium Photo Paper (£9.49 for 20 sheets) took 2 mins 10 secs in our tests. There is also a scanning and copier function, which can scan images up to a maximum of 2,400dpi, and support for optical character recognition (OCR) technology.
Comments
Keith S said: Ive had my ESP5 for a couple of years nowInitially I was very pleased with it although there were paper jam issues I had to change the printhead about 8 months ago following many episodes where my prints were either missing the black ink or were coming out blank Following a call to Kodakthey replaced the printhead free of charge I commend them for thatRecently I have been experiencing similar problemsHaving spent considerable time researching these problems it seems that these are common to a lot of ESP 5 owners If the printer is not used regularly these issues occur The ink dries and clogs the printhead Simply using the clean printhead facility is insufficient to clear the clogging The printer is advertised as being economical but I shudder to think how much ink I have wasted constantly performing the cleaning operation In a nutshell I will not be buying another Kodak printer and would recommend against anyone else doing so
Ashislam7 said: I have a Kodak ESP5 for 2 years now - It has been through 4 sets of colour amp Black inks but I have still to finish 1 ream of paper 500 sheets Additionally due to malfuncton had 3 visits to PC world for paper jams amp 2 new print heads I have had other stories where similar to my case the print head only lasts 2 sets of ink cartridges Although noisy working fine at present