Kodak ESP Office 6150 All-in-One Color Printer

For $250, the Kodak ESP Office 6150 leaves something to be desired--namely, speed. It's downright pokey at normal quality, and while things speed up in draft mode, the end results are less than exciting. Photos look decent but not fantastic, and while the literature for the 6150 claims you can print from a smartphone, I couldn't figure out (or find any help on) printing from a Blackberry. Frankly, for the price I think the Epson Artisan or the HP Officejet 4500 are better buys.

If you need a high-speed inkjet all-in-one, the Kodak ESP Office 6150 is not likely going to be your first choice. At normal quality a three-page Word document took nearly a minute to print, with the first page out in about 24 seconds--that's an average of almost 16 seconds per page. A four-page PDF took about the same time to print. Switching to draft mode certainly speeds things up, with that Word document now taking only 25 seconds to print. While black text looked fine in draft mode, colors looked awful and I noticed that columns in a graph did not print straight.

The big draw of the ESP 6150 is that it has wireless networking built in. It was quick and easy to get wireless set up and working properly. Kodak says that you can print directly from Blackberrys using the "Kodak Print" application, but I couldn't locate this app on my Blackberry to test. And the limited information about smartphone printing was in the reviewer's guide, not in the extremely limited user's guide. So good luck with that.

The printer does include a fair amount of useful functions; there's a scanner, fax, and copier; a large (2.4-inch) color LCD panel that includes information about printer ink levels; a 200-page paper tray; and automatic duplex printing. Those functions cater, I suppose, to the "Office" part of the printer's name.

Photos took under a minute to print, which is fairly average. However, the colors in the 4x6 prints I made were unimpressive, with muted, unexciting colors. That was strange given that I'd gotten better results with lower-priced Kodak printers. To be fair, there was nothing terrible about the printed images; but they don't compare all that well with prints from other printers in this price range.

Which, perhaps, is the crux of the matter. For almost $250, this printer competes in a very competitive price range against some excellent Epson, HP, and Brother machines. You might balance the price against Kodak's low-price ink cartridge replacements ($9.99 for standard sizes, and $16.99 for the high-capacity cartridges) and find out it's cheaper in the long run than those other printers. You can also add to the price Kodak's "Enhanced Support Warranty" that adds 24 / 7 access to tech support and expedited delivery of replacement parts as needed (this warranty is valid during the first one year of the printer's life).

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.