Anyone had experience with the Kodak Hero 9.1 printer?

Nikon Rumors Forum » Nikon DSLR

Anyone had experience with the Kodak Hero 9.1 printer?

(7 posts) (3 voices)

Tags:

Nikleodeon

new member
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 2
offline

Hi everyone,

I'm a new sign up, so go easy. I have searhced the forum for printer info, and most of it dates back a couple of years, so I thought a new thread was justified.

I'm looking for a printer for home use. I'm an amateur who is peeved at never getting to look at the photos I take, and want to feel able to print when I want, without having to take out a new mortgage. Important factors are initial price - £350 max - and ink costs. As I said, I want to feel able to print when I want to.

Kodak seem to be good on that front, and the Hero 9.1 has got good reviews. I'd love to hear from anyone with a view on this stuff, and some advice for a home printing novice.

A3 would be good, but it's not essential as anything I want that big I'd probably send to the lab anyway.

Thanks a lot!

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

preferred member
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 921
offline

Nikleodeon said:
I'm a new sign up, so go easy. I have searhced the forum for printer info, and most of it dates back a couple of years, so I thought a new thread was justified.

I'm looking for a printer for home use. I'm an amateur who is peeved at never getting to look at the photos I take, and want to feel able to print when I want, without having to take out a new mortgage. Important factors are initial price - £350 max - and ink costs. As I said, I want to feel able to print when I want to.

Welcome to the [NR] forum. This is where you get to rub shoulders with pro's who think we know it all and enthusiasts who really DO know it all (only joking), but all of us have an opinion (don't get put off by that). Where in the UK are you from?

Anyway... To business. Experience says that photo printing on anything less than decent semi/pro level printers will involve some kind of compromise that will be visible to you, if not today, then in a couple of years time.

I personally found that the danger with printing at home, is that I always ended up wishing I really did spend on that Epson R3000... even if I got worried at the damage it would do to my bank account every time it did a head cleaning cycle. ;-)

Guess what I am saying is; DON'T bother printing at home unless you want to spend decent (as in non-trivial) amounts of money or just love to experiment and don't care about the cost.

Anything bigger than A4, send to a lab. They will be cheaper than just about anything you can do at home - especially if you start experimenting or get a few "duds" along the way and who hasn't at times thrown away prints that are "not up to the vision" we started out with?

Kodak printers are OK as office all-in-ones, which means they are compromises that do several things OK, but none of them really well. They will not produce something you want to have your name on and displayed in an art museum for several hundred years, but at that price point and design, this should come as no surprise.

If all you want are scrap book prints, or something to give to family members as keepsakes, then the Kodak 'hero' range (what a terrible name), are no better (or really that much worse) than any other printer of this type. Ink costs are lower than average, but perhaps not by as much as you think, especially if the thing fades after a few years... just saying that this can happen with some brands is all...

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

preferred member
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 921
offline

Suppose I had better come clean and say that at work, I have access to an HP large format printer (costs upwards of $6,500 to buy and don't even ask about ink prices), as well as three Epson Rxxx series printers. We have a few Dell laser printers for documents and I use my own Epson scanner for film scanning.

At home I use an Epson multi-function printer for document printing, the odd 5x7 photo and the occasional scan.

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

preferred member
Joined: Apr '10
Posts: 2,422
offline

Just ignore bjrichus I think he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today unless you want to spend that much. ;) (just kidding Bjrichus)

I go with Epson printers, but you don't need to spend a house/rent payment to get a good one. Canon has some good ones, but for some reason I like the Epson printers better. Printers come out so fast and change so much all I keep track of is getting one with pigment-based ink which any of Epson's photo based printers have. Hell you can even get one for $90 (£65ish). I have one that is 5 years old and has the higher end Claria inks and it does just great. I got it free when I got my camera but I think is sold for $50. For 4x6s or the occasional 8x10 it does really well. Heavy printing (50+) or large sizes I just send them out to a lab. They have one's that do the A3 for just a few hundred bucks.

Kodak printers are probably good, but most of their stuff has been so cheap in the last few years I no longer consider them an option. Maybe wrong of me, but generally go with a company that isn't on the verge going bankrupt every 6 months as they have been for the last two years.

Printers - you get what you pay for, but almost any over $150 (£90) and are designated for photos, will be very good. If you are not doing pro stuff, and you really don't need to print many A3 photos, then you really don't need to break the bank on a printer. Like you said, you can always send them out.

Posted 1 year ago #
Nikleodeon

new member
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 2
offline

Hey folks thanks for the replies!

@bjrichus I'm from Sheffield, the northern 'city of steel' on the edges of the Peak District National Park, although these days work requires that I spend my time in London. Thanks for your advice, I do appreciate that there must be compromises along the way. What I want at the minute is a product that will do a pretty good job, and allow me and my family to have photos up around the house. I've taken thousands of photos over the years and on my travels, and it's a shame that they just sit on my hard drives.

In the past I have dabbled with the occasional competition, and had big prints framed. Of course, such times I'll always give the pros a call. It sounds like you have access to a whole arsenal of options at home and at work - lucky you!

@TaoTeJared others have also mentioned Epson as the 'goto' for this sort of thing. Interesting comments on Kodak too, I'll bear that in mind and continue to browse the options. I enjoy knowing about the tech I use - especially the cameras!- but as far as printers go I just want a good one that works. I dont really care about the bells and whistles, and whether it's the latest product available. So thanks for your advice, I'll have a look at the Epson options.

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

preferred member
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 921
offline

Nikleodeon said:
Hey folks thanks for the replies!

@bjrichus I'm from Sheffield, the northern 'city of steel' on the edges of the Peak District National Park, although these days work requires that I spend my time in London. Thanks for your advice, I do appreciate that there must be compromises along the way.

You are welcome. Been to Sheffield once. Was going to the university there for a conference. A long way from the south for a one day trip! You got some nice places in the Peaks if you are into landscape photography.

Nikleodeon said:
@TaoTeJared others have also mentioned Epson as the 'goto' for this sort of thing. Interesting comments on Kodak too, I'll bear that in mind and continue to browse the options. I enjoy knowing about the tech I use - especially the cameras!- but as far as printers go I just want a good one that works. I dont really care about the bells and whistles, and whether it's the latest product available. So thanks for your advice, I'll have a look at the Epson options.

I too prefer Epson as the results have just been so much better and easier to get too than with any other brand of printers.

Our tech does the large format printing for us (I am a 'staffer' at a university) and even if TTJ thinks I got up on the wrong side of bed today, I still think that these days home printing in any quantity or at any size is a bit of a luxury. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

preferred member
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 921
offline

TaoTeJared said:
Just ignore bjrichus I think he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today unless you want to spend that much. ;) (just kidding Bjrichus)

Talking of getting up on the wrong side of bed... I had to spend all afternoon in a training course on this new "corporate culture" rubbish that the MBA people want us all to adopt. Nothing whatsoever to do with anything we do and I was certainly not alone in expressing how much we thought of all this. Oh the joy of not being a freelance. Guess I'll be unemployed by the end of the week!!

I suppose the anticipation of wasting an afternoon being told we should "build an atmosphere of trust" and "encourage criticism" means I have my bosses approval to be a bit of a Grinch now?

(as if I needed anyone's approval...) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....

Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.

The new Nikon Rumors Forum is now live at http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussions. This forum is now in "read only" mode until I figure a proper way to import all data over to the new platform. Please register over at the new forum.

Anyone had experience with the Kodak Hero 9.1 printer?

Reply