Kodak Easyshare 5300 Multifunction Printer

The Age

Thursday November 8, 2007

Terry Lane

Kodak EasyShare 5300 multifunction printer

Price: $299

Consistently bright and sharp

Low-down: This is a printer/scanner/copier combination. It has a flatbed scanner and a six-colour printer that uses one black cartridge and one combined colour cartridge. Ink is pigment based, promising long print life. Kodak claims prints are about half the price of the competition because its inks are cheaper. Paper handling is unusual in that there are two trays, one for A4 and one for 10x15 cm paper. Input to the printer can be from the scanner, memory cards or computer. Both scan and print times are good. The unit is attractive and will not look out of place alongside a Mac.

Like: The special feature of the printer is the automatic detection of the paper type - as long as it is Kodak paper, which has a printed code on the reverse side that is read by the printer. This takes one of the variables out of the printing process. It works well but it does limit the utility of the unit. Sometimes a different paper type is called for and, as far as we could see (there is no printed manual), there is no way of adjusting for third-party papers. And Kodak solves the problem of pigment ink "bronzing" on glossy paper by not having a glossy paper! What they call glossy has a shiny, dimpled surface and the printer lays down a transparent gloss "ink".

Dislike: Prints made directly from memory cards are pretty awful unless the image is exactly to the printer's liking. And there is no provision for printing on CD/DVD surfaces, a facility that is taken for granted these days.

Verdict: When the photo has been properly prepared in Photoshop, the print output is consistently good - better quality and consistency than can be obtained from a commercial photo lab. Both postcard and A4 prints have excellent detail and colour. The scanner is very good. The bottom line? It is Kodak, and that means "you press the button and we do the rest". -- TERRY LANE