Kodak - ESP 2170 Wireless All-in-One Printer

After doing much comparison shopping online, I went into the store expecting to buy a completely different printer. I was a little leary about the reviews that this printer recieved, but so far my own experience has been a good one. The deal Best Buy has going on with trading in your old printer for $50 off the new Kodak printer is what changed my mind. I was just going to throw away my old printer, so being able to save more money on top of the sale price was fantastic. I would suggest printing out the full page coupon from this site before going into the store. The actual setting up of the printer was very easy(my wife did it all). We were expecting that the wireless was going give us some problems...but none at all. My wife did get a little frustrated with adding the printer to our computer...but probably from not being to sure of what we're doing. Once she "accidently" figured it out, everything has been smooth sailing. The printer is a little noisy when first warming up, but no more so than our last lexmark printer. Black and white printing is very fast and pretty quiet. The color picture prints do take a while longer but turn out very well...very clear and crisp(unless my picture was already grainy). It is still too early to tell how long the ink will last, which I did buy extra of right away just in case. But the price of the ink is already less than our last printer.

So I purchased this printer on August 30, 2011 to replace my HP all in one printer. I bought it because it was on sale with a printer recycling coupon of $50 off the price and also because we all know Kodak is supposed to be a good brand. It's been not even 3 months and the black ink cartridge ran out a few weeks ago so I guess that's not bad however, I just replaced it with a brand new black cartridge I bought from my local best buy store and I am now getting no black ink on the page. I calibrated and cleaned the print heads and printed a test page 3 times to no avail. All the test page printing did was waste my color ink which caused my color ink to finally run out as well. I just found out the biggest con of this printer: IT DOESN'T LET YOU PRINT WITHOUT BOTH CARTRIDGES! This is insane, how can I not print black and white text without my color cartridge? For this to be an "office" series printer, don't most businesses print in black and white? so you are telling me if I hardly ever use color ink, I cannot print without color ink in the printer? Big negative! However I will say customer support was great. They walked me through trouble shooting and even shipped me a replacement color ink cartridge free of charge. All I have to do is ship back the old color cartridge once the new one arrives within 3-8 business days. Overall, the printer is not a bad buy, just beware if you are not going to use a lot of color ink I just think it's a waste to buy a printer that doesn't allow you to print with a full black and white ink cartridge without a color cartridge. Just my 2 cents!

GOOD news first. This was the easiest printer setup I ever experienced in nearly 30 years, as far as software is concerned. My optical drive did not work and I could not use the software CD. I found what I needed on the Kodak website, downloaded it, and it worked the first time with my Vista Home Premium (pick that download, of course). No additional ‘kernal’ or driver files needed. Future driver updates are available for automatic download. Great. It starts up and shuts down quickly. Printing is fairly quick and good quality. Runs well on USB 2.0 cable. Auto sheet feeder and flat bed scanner. Infrequent users who buy this printer on sale (I paid 89.99) will like it. Now the BAD news. The quick setup instruction sheet was big and awkward and needed more words to go with the pictures, which were not always easy to understand. Installing the ink cartridges far in back of the interior was like reaching into the mouth of a hippopotamus. Actually a real hippo could have opened wider and made it easier. Why didn’t Kodak design this with up front ink cartridge slots, like a brand name competitor? The rear, vertical rack for blank paper feels flimsy sliding up and down. Be gentle with it. The LCD display does not move. The color ink seems to be consumed as fast as the black ink even if you seldom do color printing. But then Kodak did not brag that its machine used less ink, only that their ink is cheaper. Hmmm. Frequent users might be unhappy with that. As an infrequent user I can live with this machine until it gives up the ghost, which hopefully will not be soon. I hope the ink pan has more capacity than my last brand name printer, which stopped working only because the pan was full. Servicing it would require sending the machine out of town and the cost would be more than this new machine’s sale price. Instead of polluting the landfill, I gave the old brand name printer to Good Will for no cost and still felt guilty about it. My penance is to write this review.

I got tired of paying a lot for ink and ran across this printer that claims to have a low cost of ownership. Just about for the price of new ink for my Canon printer, I could have an entire new printer (almost...). And then you have to figure in the long-term savings of cheaper ink. So I went ahead and did it! I set the printer up to work wireless - easy setup - worked perfect! I was surprised the setup was so smooth. Since I purchased the printer because of the low cost of printing, I expected the quality to be mediocre... boy was I wrong! The quality was much better than my expensive Canon printer and the print speed was faster as well. We've been using it for a couple months now and love it. Works well, looks sharp and has been overall a good performer. We have not had to replace the ink yet, but I look forward to only needing to spend $10 when the time comes. Negatives: It has required a power off and back on a couple times to reconnect it to the network. But I believe this was a problem with my router and not the printer. I replaced my router and have not had a problem since.

Okay so I was having trouble with my old HP printer working properly with my new windows 7 laptop. The printer still worked properly and I never had any issues with it in the last 10 years. Sad that I had to let it go. That said. I shopped around and read the reviews and of course looked for the best deal. This printer seemed like a good choice, good reviews, great price and easy to set up. I was printing pictures in no time and the software was easy to navigate and I love it. Plus I can take stills from my videos and print them. Ultra sweet. One day I will use the fax capabilities, that was just an extra for now. I used the trade in and got it on sale. Can't beat that. Plus the ink is half of what I used to pay for my HP ink in a combo box. Happy so far. Good luck hunting for your next printer.

For the amount of money spent on this printer, it was worth the money. The only complaint that I have regarding this printer is the amount of noise that it makes while printing. The only concern that I had after my ink ran out was finding available ink in my area. The stores were saying that Kodak was being phased out and the company wasn't going to be making the printers anymore.

This printer is excellent. It has all the essentials that is needed such as a document feeder so that you can print more than one page at a time. Not all printers have that feature! The pages come out clear and crisp all the time. The ink is always dry. This printer is really easy to use. Just follow what it says on the screen and you will be alright. The only downfall is that I wish the scanner had higher dimensions so that I don't have to go to a store location such as fed ex for photos. The scanner is really clear and perfect. Looks very proffessional. There's also a numbe you can call to speak to a Kodak customer service representative on the cd rom that it comes with that you can call to help you set up the printer if you have trouble. They are very patient and help you every step of the way. I haven't been able to use the fax yet or the photo but I'm sure it's a no brainer. The printer also has cartridges that are low cost only $10 which saves you lots of money.

Opened box, followed the simple directions, and in less than 45 minutes I was printing easily from our 2 computers (both Win 7 and wireless). So this is really just a review of the start up. As a small business owner, I couldn't be without a printer for more than a few hours, hence my excitement of a seamless transition from dead printer to this little beauty. I'll be back to complain, if I have to. But what a great beginning!