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The Kodak EasyShare 5300 accepts 2 proprietary ink cartridges—one black and one 5-color cartridge, which includes photo black, red, blue, and yellow inks, plus a clear overcoat layer. The head, containing 3,840 nozzles, can print 2400 dots per inch horizontally across the page.
Value (8.00)
This is where Kodak is staking its new claim in the printer market. The company is selling inks for the new EasyShare All-in-One photo printer line at roughly half the price of most of the inks on the market—$9.99 for black inks and $14.99 for color. Kodak also provides the option to purchase both cartridges together for $21.99. The company claims 4 x 6-inch color prints will cost only 14 cents per print and black documents will cost 3 cents per print, based on the newly created ISO 24711 testing standards, which stipulate the use of a 5-page document printed on default settings. More can be read in a recent printerinfo news article about independent testing of Kodak’s claims.While the cheaper cost per print is compelling and backed up by independent research (paid for by Kodak, by the way), one consideration should be taken into account. The five-ink color cartridge lasts only as long as the individual colors. If one color runs out, while the rest have plentiful ink still within, the cartridge is no longer usable. For prints that have equal amounts of color throughout, this wouldn't be a problem. Since this scenario is not common or even realistic, the actual cost of the ink cartridges has to be weighed against the utility of individual cartridges such as are found in many other competing models from Canon, Epson, and HP.
 Ink management tool (6.00)Ink levels can be monitored via the 5300 Main Menu or in the driver windows on the computer. In both cases a simple tubular graphic is shown that approximates the level of ink if it were inside a cylinder. As with most other printers, this is a coarse measure and is only approximate. When nearly out of ink, but still with ink shown on the graphic, a warning appeared stating that color ink is low and the user should prepare a new cartridge. Users can continue to print, and our prints immediately showed a decline in ink. Other manufacturers’ printers, such as Canon, will not allow printing to continue when inks get below a certain level. Although somewhat annoying, this does prevent users from wasting paper.
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