Printers

Kodak is taking its first steps into the competitive camera phone market with its new EasyShare Photo Printer 350. Offering direct printing from Bluetooth-compatible mobile phones, it uses thermal dye-transfer (aka 'dye sublimation') technology to produce snapshot-sized (10 x 15 cm) prints. No card slots are provided for direct printing but you can connect a PictBridge enabled camera to a port on one side panel or hook up a computer via a rear B port on the rear. A USB cable is supplied.

Weighing just over a kilogram, the Photo Printer 350 is relatrively heavy for such a small printer and it can only be used with mains power. It's supplied with an initial 10-sheet media pack that contains paper and an ink ribbon cartridge but Kodak also offers the media in higher-capacity packs. A 40-sheet pack costs $39.95, which works out at $1 per print, while 80-sheet (RRP $59.95) and 160-sheet (RRP $79.95) bring the cost-per-print down to as low as 50 cents.

The printer adds a layer of 'Xtralife' lamination as part of the printing process to protect the prints against fingermarks, splashes and UV light. Wilhelm Imaging Research has given Kodak's thermal media a lightfastness rating of 26 years, which is similar to that of lab-produced photo prints.

Setting up the printer is easy - but you need a larger space on your desktop than the published dimensions imply. The power cable plugs into a socket on the rear panel, while the ink ribbon cartridge slots in behind a drop-down door on the opposite panel to the direct printing port. The paper tray fits into the front of the printer, adding about 20 cm to the printer's footprint, and you must leave approximately 15 cm clear at the rear of the printer to allow the paper to pass back and forth as the colours and lamination are applied.

Printing
We tried out the Bluetooth connection with three camera phones: an older Nokia 7610 with a 1.2-megapixel camera, a new Nokia N73 with 3.2 megapixels and a 3.2-megapixel Motorola V3. The printer picked up both Nokia phones in approximately 10 seconds and it took 17 seconds to transmit the image data to the printer. The smaller image file took 105 seconds to print, while the larger image took 115 seconds.

Although the printer detected the Motorola phone, we were unable to actually make prints from images stored in its memory. We were somewhat phased by this as Kodak has a working arrangement with Motorola to promote mobile phone photography so, if any brand of camera phone should work with the Photo Printer 350, you would expect it to be Motorola. We were also unable to make direct prints from a Panasonic LX2 camera via USB cable.

The supplied software includes Kodak's EasyShare software (which is slow to use and frustratingly over-automated by our estimation), printer and camera drivers plus templates for creating seven different types of greeting cards, including invitations as well as an automatic updating facility. You can elect not to install individual components via the Custom Setup menu.

Connecting the printer to a Windows XP computer was straightforward but getting images stored on the PC to print on the Photo Printer 350 was not. Although we managed to install the driver and Windows XP recognised the printer, it refused to print from either EasyShare or ArcSoft PhotoImpressions until we had re-booted the computer a couple of times. Printing time was reduced to 90 seconds with the PC connection.

The ink ribbon in the supplied 10-sheet paper/ink pack ran out after we had printed seven photos and we had to coax the printer back to work after changing to a new ribbon cartridge by switching it on and off a couple of times. However, overall print quality was very good - even from the low-resolution camera phone. With the higher-resolution camera phone and prints of high-resolution files from our PC, the Photo Printer 350 recorded plenty of detail and it was difficult to fault colour reproduction. The printer also handled the 16:9 images from the Panasonic LX2 camera competently, adding a white border around them to ensure the entire image was reproduced.

In Summary
Although the EasyShare Photo Printer 350 delivers nice looking prints from correctly-exposed image files, it lacks many of the facilities that would make it more user-friendly for family photographers. There's no LCD for viewing images and no memory card slots for direct printing. Connecting the printer with a camera phone, camera or computer can be a difficult business and some devices don't seem to work with this printer at all.

Diagnosing connection problems is also difficult as the supplied user's manual is very rudimentary and it's hard to find effective device-based or on-line diagnostic services. We suggest potential buyers take along their camera phone and any cameras they plan to print from to make sure they will 'talk with' the printer before handing over their cash.