Lowering the cost of printing

By industry estimates, only a fraction of all digital images we take end up on paper. For the most part they're stored, viewed and exchanged electronically, or just discarded. Most of us are content to view them on our computers, and an increasing percentage of those that are printed are done using photo labs, not our own printers.

Why? Many of us resist the high cost of home printing. Ink cartridges typically cost $60 to $90 each time they need replacing, and we know the profit margins are huge. In past years, Hewlett Packard's entire profits came from their ink cartridges. While we're willing to pay a fair price, we resent being gouged.
Still, none of the printer companies (Epson, HP, Canon or Lexmark) have chosen to lower their prices. Each is content with the status quo.

I happen to think it's shortsighted because they're losing business to the photo labs, on-line processors and in-store kiosks. Costco, CVS and others let you upload your files to any of their stores for printing and pick up an hour later. The cost of 4-by-6 prints is as low as 10 cents compared with 25 to 30 cents from your printer.

But now Kodak (NYSE: EK) has decided to enter the printer market by challenging the others on cost. They've introduced a series of all-in-one printers, using ink cartridges that are less than half the cost of the competition. The printers are still reasonably priced, about $25 to $40 more expensive than the competition.

I've been trying out the Model 5300, their middle entry-model combo (color ink-jet printer, scanner and copier) that costs $199. It's an attractive white unit with a control panel, a 3-inch color screen and memory card slots. I tested it using a Macintosh.

I made a series of letter-size color prints on both the 5300 and a Canon Pixma MP830 Office all-in-one printer I've been using for more than a year and that produces excellent photos. It uses five cartridges, three color and two black, that cost $75 for the set.

The Kodak 5300 uses two ink cartridges that together cost just $22. One is black and the other contains three colors, as well as clear and black. While competitors will point out that putting all the colors in a single cartridge means you'll need to replace it when just one color runs out, its low price mitigates that disadvantage.

Trying to verify the cost of a print, comprising paper and ink, is difficult because it requires making dozens of prints until the ink runs out. So without extensive testing it's hard to verify Kodak's claim of 50 percent savings.

Kodak states on its Web site the cost of a 4-by-6 color print is 14 cents versus 31 cents for its competition and 3 cents for black and white versus 7 cents. However, the 14 cents assumes the lowest grade of paper, called Photo, which seems less like photo paper and more like a heavy paper stock with a dull matte finish. While the prints were sharp and clear, the colors had less contrast, looking more like a color page from an advertising circular.

The Kodak 5300 uses two ink cartridges that together cost just $22.

Using Kodak's better grade of paper, such as you'd get from a processor, the cost of the print was about 25 cents, comparable to other printers.

For letter-size prints, Kodak's best photo paper costs 68 cents per sheet while Canon's costs 65 cents. Since the paper makes up a large portion of the cost, the savings on ink cost has a smaller effect on the print cost.

What does all this mean? If you use anything but the lowest grade of paper, Kodak's cost savings is much less than 50 percent. But when printing color images such as Web pages and PowerPoint presentations on plain paper, the cost of ink dictates most of the cost and the savings are significant.

To test the quality of photos, I printed a selection of letter-size images taken with a 10 MP Pentax DSLR camera using both Kodak's and Canon's best glossy photo paper and then did a blind test to determine which of each pair of photos was better.

Overall, the Canon prints were slightly better, but the Kodak prints were still very good. The images from the Canon seemed a tad sharper and more saturated, likely the result of Canon's paper having a higher gloss than the Kodak paper.

Overall I found the 5300 to be a very good product. It has a well-thought-out button layout, clear menus and strong performance during my testing. Print time was reasonable and the scanner and copier worked as expected.

Kodak's initial entry is a good product that should get their competitors to take notice. While Kodak's half-price claims for photos don't always add up, color on plain paper is much cheaper. And we should thank Kodak for pushing the industry in the right direction.

(c) The San Diego Transcript