Kodak ESP 3250 All-in-One Printer

The Kodak ESP 3250 is a good value--at just over $100, it won't break the bank, and neither will Kodak's low-cost ink refills. The ESP 3250 puts out great looking photos and decent-enough prints from documents, and while it's not super fast, it's not pokey, either. If you need a lot of extras--an automatic document feeder, a big LCD, or multiple paper feeds--look somewhere else. But for a three-in-one that performs well, this is a very good choice.

The Kodak ESP 3250 is at the low end of the Kodak ESP line; this one retails for about $129.99. But for the money, you certainly can't go wrong. While the ESP 3250 didn't perform quite as well as the Brother MFC-255CW or the Epson Artisan 810, it was no slouch either.

The ESP 3250 doesn't come with a lot of extras. It's got a tiny and close-to-useless 1.5-inch LCD screen that doesn't tilt. But that's not a big issue; this Kodak printer came with a suite of software that makes photo editing a snap, and I'd prefer to do my photo editing on the big screen anyway. There's no fax, networking, automatic duplexing (you can do it manually), or automatic document feeder. On the plus side, it is inexpensive, and replacement ink cartridges (there are two, one for colors and one for black) are cheap as well--only $14.99 for color and $9.99 for black. So even if the printer is a bit thirsty for ink (a charge which I think can be leveled at most of the printers I test), it's less heartbreaking to have to buy new cartridges than if the were double the price (as they typically are).

Print speeds for document printing were respectable if not lightning fast. When the printer wasn't warmed up, the first page of a four-page PDF took a minute to come out, but the whole job took only 1:44. Once warmed up it moved a lot faster, with a five-page PDF taking only 1:30 and a five-page Word document taking a few seconds less. Fastest of all was the 4x6 photo printing, which took only 42 seconds.

The Kodak ESP 3250 did a fantastic job printing photos; colors were very true and the photos were crisp and sharp looking. Document printing was a little less exciting. Fonts looked good as small as six points and as large as 72; but they weren't as razor-sharp as, say, the Epson WorkForce 310, but they were certainly good enough.

The printer does support some memory cards; but if you want or need more bells and whistles, like an automatic duplexer or a dedicated photo tray, you'll have to go up to the Kodak ESP 7, which retails at about $200.>