Here is a brief article from the New York Times talking about Kodak’s announcement about half-priced ink cartridges. They said:

For those of us paying $30 and up each time the printer runs dry, this is a godsend. Of course, Kodak’s printers will not come at the dirt- cheap prices that we are now used to, but at around $200, the all-in- one printer-scanner-copiers are not completely out of reach, either.

But they also say how this might be too little, too late because the majority of photo printing is not done at home. They say (I don’t know where they got this number) that only 30% of photos are printed by home users. The rest are done at stores or through online services. If that is accurate, then it would be hard to get a lot of people to change their ways and to start printing their own pictures, especially since they would have to buy Kodak, a brand that may either seem archaic to a lot of people who purchase inkjet printers. People know Kodak as a camera and film company, but not as a printer company. It might be hard to convince people to ignore giants like HP, Canon and Epson that they have been purchasing for years. But, it seems like if you tell someone they can get the same quality for half the price, they would be willing to try a “new” brand.

Kodak’s Ink Jet Cartridges: Just a First Step [NY Times]

HP announced that they will change the packaging on their inkjet and toner cartridges to reduce waste. They are going to be making smaller and lighter packages, which will reduce their greenhouse emissions. They say that these changes will result in a reduction of 37 million pounds of greenhouse gas. Their new toner cartridge boxes will 45% less packaging than their previous boxes and the reduction in size will also help retailers, since they will be able to put more products on their shelves.

Good job HP.

HP’s Redesigned Ink, Toner Packaging to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 37 Million Pounds in 2007 [Press Release]

Kodak announced today that they were entering the inkjet market with a new line of EasyShare All-In-One printers. I’m pretty sure that these aren’t the first inkjets that Kodak has released, but regardless this is pretty big news in the world of printing? Why? Well because Kodak is making a statement by charging very low prices for their ink cartridges. They claim that it will basically be half as expensive to operate one of their machines versus what it would take to run an HP, Epson etc.

The new printers that Kodak is releasing will use a black cartridge that costs $10 and a color cartridge that costs $15. Obviously those prices are pretty low, but they don’t mention how much ink is in each cartridge so it’s hard to accurately predict how much cheaper their ink will be. But, unless their cartridges have like 1 oz of ink in them, $10 for a new cartridge is certainly going to catch the attention of the other printer manufacturers. When announcing these new printers, Kodak mentioned how studies have shown that people consider the cost of ink to be an obstacle to home printing (which is true) and that their new line of printers will usher in a wave of change (possibly true).

Here are the three models they are releasing:

• The Easyshare 5100 all-in-one - featuring print, scan and copy capabilities, delivers high-quality documents and photos for users who enjoy printing without limitations. This machine is rated at 32 ppm in black and 22 ppm in color, and print photos from PICTBRIDGE-enabled cameras without a computer. It will retail for $150 and will hit stores this March.

• The Easyshare 5300 all-in-one - builds on the 5100’s features by offering a 3-inch color LCD display that enables photo viewing and cropping directly from the printer. Memory card slots provide an additional quick and simple way to print digital pictures without a PC. It will retail for $200 and hit stores this March.

• The Easyshare 5500 all-in-one - is “the perfect solution for home-office users and connected families who want to do it all with no constraints.” It has the same features as the 5100 and 5300 printers, plus fax capability and a 2.4″ LCD display, an automatic document feeder and a duplexer attachment. It will retail for $300. It should be on the market by May.

These printers will be for sale exclusively at Best Buy.

New Line of All-In-One Inkjet Printers [Press Release]

Amazon has a deal going on where if you purchase a select Canon digital camera, you can get a free PIXMA iP6210D printer. Right now that printer is selling for $60, so it’s not a bad deal if you are in the market for a new digital camera. When you purchase the camera, you enter the coupon code MKS27AHD at checkout to get the free printer.
One of the best deals for a camera is the Canon PowerShot A540. It’s a 6MP camera that’s currently $170 and it has very good feedback from Amazon customers. It’s also the cheapest camera that’s part of this promotion.

A company called Zink wants to release a printer that doesn’t use ink. Together with Polaroid, they have developed tiny printers that can print pictures without the use of ink cartridges. Basically, the printers use a special kind of paper with different layers, all of which react differently to heat. So you heat the layers differently and they each either turn to red, blue or yellow. Since there are no cartridges, the printers could theoretically be as small as they want to make them. The downside to this technology is that the special paper that the printer uses is very expensive - Zink wants to charge $20 for 100 sheets of paper.

A printer without ink from Zink [CNET]