Monday, October 03, 2005
Personal photo printing
After about 3 years of sticking with the same reliable mobile phone (Nokia's erstwhile 6310i) I finally upgraded to something a little flashier: Nokia's 6230i (the similarity in model numbers belies the differences between the phones). Which feature finally persuaded me to upgrade? Well, it came with a free photo printer of course! You know the sort: a small colour printer that will print my digital snaps onto 6x4 paper. grand - no more hanging around in Boots helping that person who's never used a Kodak kiosk before - they always decide to pop in just ahead of me.
Now, this offer really did seem too good to be true: free phone, free printer, free Bluetooth adapter. Since I really was on the lookput for a new phone anyway, I snapped it up, and my new photo printer arrived this afternoon. It took a couple of failed attempts to get my Mac to see it (slight change in the MacOS X prefs since the manual was written I think) and I got the paper size wrong on the first print, so it only printed half the snap, but after that it's worked fine. one very odd feature of the printer is that when it takes the paper from the tray on the front, it actually winds it through and pushes it out of the back of printer before taking it back in, so as to avoid having to bend the paper around a drum. nice feature, but it doesn't quite fit with where I put the printer, ie up against the wall. I rescued it just in time.
the kodak paper is nice and glossy, and the perforated end strips come off easily leaving barely a ruffle, and the prints themselves are colourful, clear, and they come out quickly. I'm impressed with everything except the price. with the cheapest price I've found for the media packs (you need paper and ink cartridge) I'll be paying about 40p per photo. now, the kiosk in boots does charge 50p a print for under 10 prints (or something like that) but more often than not I just upload my photos to PhotoBox (highly recommended), paying about 15p per print. so at more than double my usual price, this printer is destined to be a novelty item. I'm also slightly concerned about the disposable nature of the ink cartridge - 40 prints per unit is hardly economical nor can it be environmentally friendly!
I was pleasantly suprised to find that when I took the Kodak Bluetooth module (supplied so I can print directly from my mobile phone) and plugged it in to my Mac, I suddenly had Bluetooth on the computer! now that's great, if only I could find something to do with it. sadly, my 6230 isn't compatible with MacOS X's iSync :-(
After about 3 years of sticking with the same reliable mobile phone (Nokia's erstwhile 6310i) I finally upgraded to something a little flashier: Nokia's 6230i (the similarity in model numbers belies the differences between the phones). Which feature finally persuaded me to upgrade? Well, it came with a free photo printer of course! You know the sort: a small colour printer that will print my digital snaps onto 6x4 paper. grand - no more hanging around in Boots helping that person who's never used a Kodak kiosk before - they always decide to pop in just ahead of me.
Now, this offer really did seem too good to be true: free phone, free printer, free Bluetooth adapter. Since I really was on the lookput for a new phone anyway, I snapped it up, and my new photo printer arrived this afternoon. It took a couple of failed attempts to get my Mac to see it (slight change in the MacOS X prefs since the manual was written I think) and I got the paper size wrong on the first print, so it only printed half the snap, but after that it's worked fine. one very odd feature of the printer is that when it takes the paper from the tray on the front, it actually winds it through and pushes it out of the back of printer before taking it back in, so as to avoid having to bend the paper around a drum. nice feature, but it doesn't quite fit with where I put the printer, ie up against the wall. I rescued it just in time.
the kodak paper is nice and glossy, and the perforated end strips come off easily leaving barely a ruffle, and the prints themselves are colourful, clear, and they come out quickly. I'm impressed with everything except the price. with the cheapest price I've found for the media packs (you need paper and ink cartridge) I'll be paying about 40p per photo. now, the kiosk in boots does charge 50p a print for under 10 prints (or something like that) but more often than not I just upload my photos to PhotoBox (highly recommended), paying about 15p per print. so at more than double my usual price, this printer is destined to be a novelty item. I'm also slightly concerned about the disposable nature of the ink cartridge - 40 prints per unit is hardly economical nor can it be environmentally friendly!
I was pleasantly suprised to find that when I took the Kodak Bluetooth module (supplied so I can print directly from my mobile phone) and plugged it in to my Mac, I suddenly had Bluetooth on the computer! now that's great, if only I could find something to do with it. sadly, my 6230 isn't compatible with MacOS X's iSync :-(
Comments:
Post a Comment
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
Atom
RSS