Yesterday’s post also led me to another interesting story. Actually, it was only a paragraph or two within the same story, but I found it pretty interesting and kind of comical. So much so that is deserved its own post. This just goes to prove there is a niche to be found for everyone.

Dr. Will Miller is a noted pop culture psychologist and the self proclaimed “Ink Shrink”. Your are reading this correctly, an INK SHRINK. Now, the question has to be asked, what on earth does an Ink Shrink do, or what could he possible useful information could he lend to the world. Well, useful or not is up to the reader, but here is what he offers.

According to Dr. Will the typical home printer users fits one of three profiles — Squirrels, Squids, or Snakes (Any guesses as to where this is going yet? Keep reading.) Using his expertise and results from the Kodak survey the profiles can be described in the following ways.

Squirrels - Conscientiously concerned about conserving ink.

Squids - Not concerned about wasting ink; strong likelihood to print whatever, whenever.

Snakes - Printing personal documents away from home or having others print for them.

In an apparent plug for the benefits of the new Kodak ink cartridges, Dr. Will said “Printer innovations, like Kodak’s new premium ink, can reduce undue stress and ink conservation maneuvers for the squirrels and snakes among us.” He then went on to say, “It can also drive thicker family photo albums, less ink sneaking at the office and better printer privileges for the kids.” Sounds like someone was on Kodak’s payroll for this one. Combine survey results with some pop culture and hopefully that equals some sales.

For those interested you can take a survey and find your profile at www.inkisit.com. The questions are pretty funny. It is a Kodak sponsored site so be prepared.

I am a squirrel!

What does the U.S. population think about printer ink?

Kodak recently commissioned a nationwide survey and the results are in. Here is what they found out.

Nearly 50% of home printer users said they would print more or their printing habits would change if printer ink cost less. Nearly 60% said that printer ink is so expensive that they try not to waste it. And, 8 out of 10 (80%) of printer users say it is important to conserve printer ink.

Other results show that:

- 59% of printer users print in black and white as a way to conserve the more expensive color ink.

- 33% print in draft mode to conserve ink.

- 57% choose to just view things on their computer monitor rather than print at all.

- 30% avoid printing photos.

- 25% are sneaky and print in locations other than their home (friend’s home, work)

The cost of printer ink has also impacted children. 30% of the parents surveyed said they would let their children print more in color if ink was less expensive. 36% of parents admited to limiting their children’s use of the printer because of the cost of ink.

And now comes my favorite part of the survey. A new titled has been given to those that do all of their printing at their place of work — The Office Ink Sneak!

Results show that 6 out of 10 office workers that own their own printer (at home) print their personal documents at work. 28% said they use the office printers to conserve their home printing supplies or because the supplies at the office are free. You can read the whole story and see all the results here.

Having worked in an office I could definitely be called an Ink Sneak, as are many of my co-workers now. But, this gives me an idea. How about Pacific Ink offers a Ink Sneak discount? A little something to save you a little money so you don’t have to feel so bad when you have to print something on a weekend while you are away from the office.

There is finally some data on the page yields of the new Kodak inkjet cartridges. Here is what we found.

Kodak contacted Quality Logic, a provider of leading edge quality assurance and quality control test tools for the imaging industry. Quality Logic partners with leading technology firms and standards organizations to develop their testing protocols.

With Kodak’s permission, Quality logic put their EASYSHARE 5300 printer to the test against the printers of 5 other manufacturers (Brother MFC-5460CN, Canon PIXMA MP160, PIXMA MP510, PIXMA MP600, PIXMA MP810, Epson Stylus CX6000, Stylus Photo RX580, HP PhotoSmart C3180, PhotoSmart C4180, PhotoSmart C5180, Lexmark X3470, X8350). Here is what the test included:

• Use of a standard suite of 5 pages printed in a controlled environment with printer default settings.
• Nine cartridges from each of the printers was tested. Cartridges were used until they ran out of ink.
• The cartridges used represented those available to consumers on the open market.
• A well defined “out of ink” criterion was developed to determine when they could deem the cartridge as out of ink.
• A minimum of 3 different cartridges were tested on 3 different printers.
• The printing environment was controlled.

What did they find out? Results were quite interesting, and the Kodak printers performed right in line with all the other printers it was tested against. Take look at the full results when you have a few minutes.

As a note of interest, the HP printers did not perform as well against the Kodak as all the Brother, Canon, Epson, and Lexmark printers did. We’re wondering if this has something to do with all the noise they are making with the re-pricing of their cartridges. Let Pacific Ink know what you think?

Robin Raskin, a Yahoo! tech advisor, wrote an interesting article on Kodak inkjet printers and their claim to save consumers 50% on their printer cartridge costs.

You can read the full story, but here is the short of it.

Kodak has been selling inkjet cartridges at $10 (black) and $15 (color), about 50% less than other printer manufacturers are selling their black and color printer cartridges for. They also claimed that based on these prices a home printer user could produce 4×6 color photos at a cost of 14 cents each.

Popular Photography took these numbers and put them to the test. Their finding: To get the quality photo that Kodak claimed you would you needed to purchase their more expensive photo paper. This brought the price of each photo to 35 cents. Kodak quickly responded that their printers and inks were “created to serve the needs of households that print large quantities of black and white and color documents in addition to color photos.” The Kodak series of printers were not designed to be exclusively photo printers.

In the end, Raskin said she liked the printer, and felt she was saving money. Pacific Ink wants to know what you think?

As Kodak debuts its new line of inkjet printers, it is not the printer themselves that are creating the headlines, it is the printer cartridges.

The new Kodak EASYSHARE All-in-One models use pigmented based printer ink cartridges that are priced at $9.99 for black and $14.99 for a five color cartridge (about 50% less than what you will pay for black and color cartridges manufactured by HP, Lexmark, Dell, and Epson). Kodak CEO Antonio M. Perez was quoted as:

“For far to long, people have felt restrained from printing due to the high cost of ink. Our new system gives consumers the freedom to print documents and photos frequently, easily and affordably with exceptional quality that lasts a lifetime under typical home display conditions.”

Kodak has adopted the slogan, thINK, and features on their web site, “Think: is it smarter to save money on a printer or ink? (Hint: You only buy the printer once.)”

What kind of pritners is Kodak putting out?

The EASYSHARE 5100 AiO printer ($149.99) an print and copy up to 32ppm in black and 22ppm in color. This 5100 will be available this month (March 2007) from BESTBUY and in April 2007 on the Kodak web site.

The EASYSHARE 5300 printer ($199.99) has a 3-inch color LCD that allows the user to view and crop photos directly from the printer before printing. This printer will be available this month (March 2007) from BESTBUY and online in April at the Kodak web site.

The EASYSHARE 5500 ($299.99) has a fax function and included a 2.4 inch color LCD, an automatic document feeder, and a duplexer attachement.

Kodak is touting their exclusive KODACOLOR Technology, which is a combination of 4 key elements; pigment based inks, micro-porous photo papers, color and image science, and the Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) print head. Their printer cartridge packaging is also quite aggressive, touting a savings “of up to 50% on everything you print.”

Note: Do notice that one key component of the KODACOLOR Technology is micro-porous photo paper. Kodak has taken the approach of promoting their photo paper along with their cartridges and printers. Most printer manufacturers have taken to endoring their own photo paper as being best for use in their printer. It’s nothing new, but it is nice to see they are not entirely bucking the system.

A change in models, huh? Could the razor and blade model that has worked in the inkjet printer industry for so long be coming to and end?

Kodak is trying to do just that with their new line of printers and printer cartridges. Instead of selling their printers for next to nothing, Kodak proposes to charge more for a printer and then charge less for the printer cartridges that is uses.

As most consumers are aware, printer manufacturers have taken offering printers at very low prices over the last few years. This in an attempt to get the printer on to your desk and then create a need for printer cartridges that they would sell to you at a high price. This approach created space for the “aftermarket”, or printer cartridge suppliers who did not specialize in manufacturer brand cartridges, but instead third party manufactured compatible cartridges and remanufactured/recycled cartridges. Dell then came along and topped everyone by giving a printer away with the purchase of a Dell computer system. The world was in love until it saw how much Dell brand print cartridges costed (and experienced the low quality level of some of the original Dell printers).

So now comes Kodak offering a line of printers priced from $199 to $299 (still somewhat affordable), and printer cartridges priced from $10 to $15. While Kodak is new to the printer market, they are making quite a splash with their initial prices. They have also dedicated a web site to educating consumers on the economics of ink cartridges and promoting their printers. They have titled their campaign thINK (as in use your brain and think about how much you are spending on printer cartridges).

It really comes down to the amount of attention Kodak can get for their “revolutionary” way of thinking. Can they steal enough of a consumer base to make this venture work for them? Will consumers be forward thinking enough to spend more now to save later? Only time will tell.

Oh yeah, their idea has created at least one copy-cat (for now) Epson has been utilizing the same type of strategy in China. They have been promoting the sales of their printers through a promise based on a lower cost of supplies.

Way back in the late 1990’s, Kodak and Lexmark used to be buddies. Lexmark made photo printers that had Kodak’s name on them and all was fine and dandy. Well, it turns out that partnership amounted to a whole lot of nothing and they stopped making printers together.

Now, with Kodak’s announcement that they will be selling really cheap ink cartridges, they have become Lexmark’s arch enemy. Lexmark’s spokesman said “there is nothing revolutionary in the Kodak announcement.” That sounds kind of petty considering Kodak announced they would be selling something at half the price that everyone sells it at. If that doesn’t qualify as a least a little revolutionary, then I don’t know what does. It’s not like Lexmark’s been blowing our socks off lately with their announcements.

Lexmark is mad because they have the most to lose. Kodak is focused on selling all-in-one machines, which is the area that Lexmark has decided to focus on lately. Lexmark hasn’t been doing too hot lately and they will always be behind HP, Canon and Epson in terms of market share and quality. So they are afraid that if someone goes into a store and has to chose between a Lexmark and a Kodak, they will chose a Kodak, even if it is a little more expensive. Lexmark claims that Kodak is just ripping you off with a “prepaid” model where customers “pay a substantial premium and put more money in their pocket more quickly whether you use more ink or not.” It’s true that the Kodak printers will cost a little bit more, but not substantially more. Unless you plan on junking the printer after one set of ink cartridges (which, by the way, some people do with Lexmark printers because the ink is so expensive) you will definitely save with a Kodak printer in the long run. Of course, all this is assuming that the discounted Kodak cartridges will be equal in size and quality to cartridges from the other main printer manufacturers. We shall see.

Lexmark, Kodak aren’t so cozy now [Kentucky.com]

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]

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]

One type of inkjet printer that we haven’t heard too much about is standalone compact photo printers. They started appearing on the market around the same time that at-home photo printing took off, but today they still only make up a relatively small portion of the photo printing market. Even though a lot of people like printing their own photos, so far they haven’t seemed to be totally on board with owning a printer that probably just prints 4 x 6s and nothing else. Companies like Kodak, HP and Canon make an effort to have their customers use their cameras and then hook up those cameras to their compact printers and print with their ink on their paper. Since we haven’t provided too many reviews on any of these kinds of printers so far, we thought we would point out an article in the NY Times that takes a look at five of these printers.

They take a look at the HP Photosmart 475, the Lexmark P450, the Canon Selphy CP170, the Kodak EasyShare 500 and the Epson PictureMate Deluxe. They don’t do any real in depth testing on the machines, but they compare the basic and important stuff like print quality, print speed and general usability. They don’t declare a clear winner, but their top choices are the Kodak and the Epson. Like with most other printers, Lexmark disappoints. They note that the HP has “gadget appeal” but that it is slow and its first print jobs all jammed. The Canon had potential but it had some technical issues.

The Epson and Kodak machines both run about $200, so they right around the same price as some regular photo printers.

Anyone out there own a compact photo printer?

The Joys and Pitfalls of One-and-a-Half-Minute Photo Processing [NY Times]