If you are not going to bother about the speed of the printer then ESP 3250 of Kodak will be the best choice printer within your budget for just $130. You need not spend lot for buying ink cartridge like other printers. However, the output is very slow and it does not have wireless connection for internet.
For most of us, speed does not matter at all, if we are saving some money for that. If you need additional features then you should spend extra dollars for buying a smart printer. Kodak’s ESP 3250 is stylish with black cover and curved edges. It comes with a footprint for mounting it in desk and the only way of connecting it to your computer is by USB power chord.
The control panel has four buttons for performing functions and copying and scanning are commanded by OK button. The LCD screen is very small and is used for viewing the print preview. The printer uses four ink cartridges for colour all of which are assembled in single cartridge and one black for normal prints. The print head unit is in built inside the printer.
The Kodak’s ESP of 3250 contains only one input tray which can accommodate 100 papers apart from 20 photo papers. The printout papers are given out at the top portion of the input tray thus saving some more space. The entire unit is handy and convenient to carry. The printer is capable of handling various paper sizes and it has an auto detect element for sensing the paper for making adjustments in settings for taking printout.
Since there is no wireless connectivity the installation of USB cable was easy through the enclosed CD. The ink cartridge is labelled neatly for identification. When printing goes on, the printer produced little noise which could be tolerated. The ESP 3250 contains OCR mechanism for detecting the photo paper.
With only few options available, the printer was efficient to scan and copy the document. Kodak also does some formatting for the scanned document and photos. A new folder can be opened for saving the document scanned.
You already know the output will be slow and hence you have to wait for some more time for receiving the printouts. When compared with other models of similar price, Kodak’s ESP 3250 was much slower in giving printout. The test was conducted on printing text and picture document. The functions of scanning, copying was found to be slow.
The quality of printouts was little lighter than other printers and colours in prints was also not clearly distinguishable. When photo paper was used, the results improved and the colour was nice. Kodak guarantees for the printouts longevity for over 100 years.
As said earlier, the ESP 3250 from Kodak is money saving printer. The cartridges are very cheap and the cost per page is also very low. If you are looking for a budget machine, then ESP 3250 is the best choice giving good quality for cheap cost, provided you have to be patient in waiting for its printouts.