Kodak printer vent

reniannen

A bit of a vent and info for anyone considering a Kodak ESP 7 printer.

We purchased one of these in late February attracted by the low printing costs. We were initially very happy and it was working fine, albeit a bit clanky and noisy, until after a couple of weeks it developed a phantom paper jam out of the blue. After going through Kodak's help pages it finally said it would need repaired. Needing the printer quickly, as my father runs his business from home, we decided just to take it back to the shop.

Since we'd been happy otherwise we took the same model as a replacement. This time it was quieter and seemed to be working perfectly, until we changed the ink cartridge. After this it stopped printing black ink completely and colour printing was very faded. We tried all their maintenance options, new cartridges etc to no avail. This time it was a weekend and we needed a printer urgently so decided to take it back to the shop once and for all. Comet refused saying we needed to take it up with Kodak, and we ended up buying a Lexmark to replace it anyway (which continues to work absolutely perfectly).

We phoned Kodak on the Monday and discovered their awful (India based) customer service. They said they would have sent a new printhead, but we explained why this was no use because we needed the printer urgently, that we were unhappy with the reliability, we had bought a new printer and wanted a refund. They said they would get back to us. A week later after hearing nothing from them phoned again and had to repeat the same details. This time they said it would take 8 weeks to process a refund. :mad: When asked about them uplifting the printer, they said a different department dealt with that. :rolleyes: We've not heard anything since and live in hope.

The printer might save you in printing costs but not in time and energy trying to fix it and return it. They're obviously not very well built, and are too prone to mechanical faults. Added to that Kodak's customer service is absolutely abysmal. After hearing we'd bought another printer they seem to have given up and made no attempt to regain our trust. As it stands we'd be very reluctant to buy from Kodak again.

A_Nice_Englishman

Personally, I'd go for a colour laser printer. I have loads of them at work and they give very little trouble. Brother, Konica Minolta and Epson are all offering a free 3 yr on-site warranty on theirs at the moment.

reniannen

Thanks but it's only a small two man business. Laser printers just aren't economical and when it's only documents being printed inkjet quality is fine. For bigger businesses yeah laser printers become a better option.

A_Nice_Englishman

Laser printing is usually considered cheaper than inkjet but I must I admit haven't done the sums lately as we don't use inkjets any more.

WolfSong2000

If you do a lot of printing, then Laserjet printers are the way to go...cartridges are horrifically expensive, but they last much, much longer than inkjet cartridges, so work out cheaper in the long run.

Little tip - HP are the best, printer wise, and their printers come with full sized ink cartridges installed, not the small "tester" cartridges that the other companies (e.g. Brother, Lexmark) offer.