Kodak sent me an  EasyShare 5300 All-in-One Printer to review.  How cool is that?!  It arrived in the middle of us trying to get me back up and running after my computer died last week.   I was going to put off installing it until we had my new system set up, but we really needed to scan something in - and fast!

I was impressed at how quickly and easily we were able to get the printer installed on one of our other computers.  Within 30 minutes, we'd installed the printer from scratch, updated the drivers, and figured out how to scan a multi-page document and have the printer turn it into a multi-page pdf.  It was *unbelievable* how easy it was.  After picking the scan settings, it was just three or four clicks to scan the two pages and output a pdf.  So awesome.

Kodak's big selling point is that their inks are cheaper ($10 for black and $15 for color) than other companys' inks.  I think that is such a smart move.  The ink for our last all-in-one printer cost us about $45 each time.  It really made me sick to my stomach to pay that because that was over half of what the printer cost in the first place.

Well, I'm really looking forward to testing it out and using some of its fancy features.  I've already done a little printing ... but I'll save that for my review in a week or two. So far I'm *very* impressed.

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I love this printer!  Well, technically it's an all-in-one because the EasyShare 5300 is a fax, copier, scanner, and printer.  The prints are nice, the interface is easy to use, and it quickly turns scans into nicely compressed pdf files.  It's been a dream to use.

Prints
I'm very impressed with print quality.  Text is crisp and the detail in photos is amazing.  We did a 4" x 6" print of this photo.  Just look at the tiny pencil lines on the wall ... not a hint of pixelization.  In fact, I'd have a hard time guessing these photos were printed on a printer from digital files.  They are that good.

(This is a close-up photo of the print.  The graininess is from the photo of the print, not the print itself) Some colors seem a little different in the prints than on my screen, but I'm sure there's some sort of color syncing I could do to make them closer.  Skin tones look fine, it's just some blues and greens are a little more or less blue or green.  Nothing I'd really notice unless I'm holding the print up to the screen.

Scans
Like I mentioned above when we installed the printer scanning is a snap.  Last night I scanned my Interweave Crochet article to turn it into a pdf.  The way it's printed in the magazine, I had to scan it upside down.  Somehow, and don't ask me how, the printer knew it was upside down and flipped it for me when it made the pdf.  I know!  Freaky.  Once the page was scanned in, using the printer's interface I was able to crop off the edges of the scan beyond the article and then make the pdf.  The software keeps the scan available so I could keep cropping or making changes and keep making pdfs until I'm happy with it.  No need to keep rescanning. So easy!

Other Stuff
The printer makes very robot-y noises, which I think are hilarious.  Also, you totally have to pull out the paper catcher because, without it, prints get launched into the room.  Which I also think is hilarious.  We haven't given the printer a name yet, but it has such a distinct personality that I'm sure it will get one eventually.

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