Kodak ESP 7250 review

Released: January 2010
Print Resolution: 9600x2440dpi
Engine: Ten series Kodak black & colour ink
Ink re-fill cost: £19
Paper Cost: £14
Interface: USB 2.0, WiFi, ethernet, card slots, PictBridge, Bluetooth
Build Quality Although the footprint is slighter smaller than the Epson PX720WD, the height is noticeable larger, making the whole unit look a fair bit chunkier. As expected, the construction is mainly plastic, but it’s the more refined mottled variety, which improves the aesthetics. Rather than just silver trim there’s a lot of silver on the front panel, so it’s a bit more of a two-tone style than the others, but it still feels more 'classic home' than 'office utility.'

Easy of Use The 6.1cm LCD screen
guides you through the set-up process of installing the print head, two ink cartridges and loading plain paper to calibrate the print head. It’s all easy enough and, with the software loaded on to our PC, the whole process took no longer than 20 minutes. The memory card slots and PictBridge port on the front allow you to print images directly and you can use the 
LCD screen and D-pad to flick between images, zoom and crop. Some of the operations can 
be a little slow though, which is frustrating, but you can save presets from the LCD for quicker prints in the future. The front panel houses the controls and can be tilted to 45º for easier use. Rather than the touch-sensitive controls of the Epson and Canon multifunction printers, the ESP 7250 has the more traditional buttons, which aren’t difficult to use, but feel somewhat old-fashioned.

Features As well as featuring a WiFi and ethernet connection, the ESP 7250 is enabled to print from some mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone, and you can send images to Kodak’s Easyshare wireless photo frames at the same time. Offering two paper trays for different media, the photo paper tray is selected automatically for photo printing, which is handy. The ESP 7250 also features two-sided duplex printing, a 2400dpi scanner with both copy and scan functions and you can save scans as a file on your PC, as an email attachment, or upload them to a Kodak gallery.

Print Speed & Quality Printed colours on the ESP 7250 aren’t as saturated or as natural as the Canon and Epson multifunction printers. There’s a noticeable warm magenta cast to all the prints including mono prints but, that said, skin tones remain natural, which is a bonus. Scan quality from the ESP 7250 wasn’t quite up to the competition either with softer fine detail and both noise and banding being evident. The ESP 7250 did excel with its print times, producing an A4 print in just 2 minutes and 8 seconds – the fastest on test.
Verdict: The integrated functionality will appeal if you’re looking to print wireless from an Apple device but in terms of print quality and ease of use the Kodak can’t compete with the Epson and Canon options.

Build quality: 4/5      
Ease of use: 4.5/5      
Features: 4/5    
Print speed & quality: 3/5
Overall: 4.5/5