Kodak ESP C310 Multifunction Color Printer

The Kodak ESP C310 comes it at under $100 and offers printing, scanning, and copying in a very compact machine. Graphics and fonts looked surprisingly sharp and clear for such a low-end printer, but in copying colors were noticeably subdued; photos also looked good, though not as sharp as with similarly priced printers. Photos tended to come out of the printer slightly bowed, though they flattened out after a few minutes. The on-board controls and tiny LCD are minimal but adequate for occasional printing. If you print often, they may become a drawback, as will the rear-feed-only tray that holds only 100 sheets.

For under $100, the new Kodak ESP C310 multifunction printer has a lot going for it. For one thing, it's reasonably sized, so I could actually see around and behind it, unlike some other very large multifunctions I've recently tested. Of course, real estate comes at a price--in this case, the price is that there is only a single paper feed (a rear tray that holds 100 sheets of paper, or 20 sheets of photo paper). There's no duplexer either, though manual duplexing is available. And the on-board controls are minimal (and the LCD is a tiny 1.5-inches), but they do offer lots of handy one-touch printing options.

Printing times were in line with most other all-in-ones I've tested, if a bit on the slow side. First pages took about 21 seconds to come out, and an average four-page color print job (using a Word document) took 1:06 and slightly longer for a large PDF file, across a wireless network. It's worth noting that the wireless on this printer was quickly set up, though since it's all done via the tiny LCD screen, keep your reading glasses handy. Results from document printing were more than acceptable, with good-looking prints resulting even at normal printing quality. I didn't notice much bleed into the paper, which keeps the fonts looking crisp.

The printer puts out a 4x6 color photo in around 45 seconds, again certainly a very respectable speed with good results. Good, but not awesome; slightly less sharp than other, higher-priced printers I've tested. Photos came out of the printer bowed, even when using Kodak paper, which was alarming at first; however, after a few minutes they flattened out and looked fine.

For under $100, it's hard to be too picky about not having much-needed features such as a paper tray. Particularly when the cost of refills for Kodak ESP printers is low; about $18 for the color cartridge, and about $10 for the black cartridge (high-capacity cartridges are available as well). Normal cartridges underscore that this is a printer for people who don't need to print all that often, as color cartridges are rated for about 275 pages, black for about 335 pages. Then again, since they're not overly expensive, at least it's not too painful when it's time to replace them. I'd certainly advise getting the higher capacity cartridges as they're typically a better value; however, I couldn't find prices for them in Kodak's write-up of the ESP C310.

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