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Kodak Pictures Inexpensive Ink

I've been following the printer/scanner market for some years now, and one of the industry's dirty little secrets -- well, it's really not that secret -- is the fact that vendors make their money not on the printers themselves, but on the cartridges, paper, and other consumables. Have you added up what you pay in toner and/or ink cartridges a year? Scary, isn't it?

Now, Kodak is going to buck that trend -- and if it succeeds, it may become a significant player in the printer game. According to Kodak, it will be introducing a line of all-in-one inkjet printers -- the EasyShare 5100, 5300, and 5500 -- that will offer black ink cartridges at $9.99 each and five-ink color cartridges at $14.99 each. That's a lot less than most other inkjet cartridges. (I remember having to shell out almost $30 for one printer's cartridges.)

It will be interesting to see how Kodak's first venture into the printer mainstream proceeds. If the new all-in-ones turn out to be reasonably well built, and if the inks are anywhere near the quality of those of HP, Canon, and the others, then Kodak may very well become a real contender.

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