February 8, 2007: I recently read a great article by Popular Photography’s Mike McNamara on the high price of injet ink. According to Mike:

HP recently broke the $10,000 per gallon mark with some of its color inks and I didn’t hear anyone complain—despite it being for a popular consumer line of photo printers. Currently, HP’s Magenta ink for its Photosmart 8200 series sells for $9.99 at most stores along with the required Y, Lc, Lm, B, and C inks at the same price. However, HP only puts 3.5ml in the M cartridge, 4ml in the C, 5.5ml in the Lc and Lm, and 6ml in the Y. Do the math and the Magenta ink is $2.85/ml (compared to $1.15/ml for all colors in Canon’s Chromalife #8 ink set and $1/ml for its #6 inks). Ok, HP’s inks may produce prints that last longer than Canon’s, but there are 3,785 ml in a gallon, making the final price for magenta ink an astronomical $10,788/gal!

So, it should be good news that Kodak is coming out with a new line of inkjet printers that they’re trumpeting as real cost-savers. This is from Steve’s Digicams:

NEW YORK, Feb. 6 — Eastman Kodak Company today entered the consumer inkjet industry with a revolutionary new product line for the home. KODAK EASYSHARE All-in-One Printers will enable consumers to affordably print crisp, sharp documents and KODAK lab-quality photos at home using premium, pigment-based inks that will save consumers up to 50 percent on everything they print. The three new printers provide ultimate levels of print quality and ease-of-use, while offering low total cost of ownership compared to other leading consumer inkjet printers on the market.

The EASYSHARE AiO Printers use Kodak’s premium, pigment-based ink, priced at $9.99 for a cartridge of black ink and $14.99 for a five-ink color cartridge (US MSRP). For every $15 spent on color ink and $10 spent on black ink, consumers can print the same number of pages at half the cost of other consumer inkjet printers.When the KODAK Photo Value Pack is purchased, a 4 x 6-inch photo costs as little as 10 cents per print.

But did you notice the catch in that press release? Unlike Canon, Epson and HP, who are smart and sensible enough to use single-color ink cartridges, the Kodak uses a five-ink color cartridge! That means that if you run out of blue (printing a lot of sky pictures?) or green (any landscape photographers out there?) you have to throw away the entire cartridge, even if you have plenty of the other colors left!

Hello!!!! Earth to Kodak!!! What are you thinking?  

What are the odds that you actually save any money with Kodak’s wasterful technology? My guess is, not good.

That’s too bad for consumers, because ink jet refills really are ridiculously expensive.

We’ll talk about this with Mike when he’s a guest on the show next week. He’s a great who’s very tech savvy. Check out his column and then check him out on the show next week.

Scott

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