Kodak 8500 Printer

Does anyone use the Kodak 8500 printer onsite ? If so how does it compare to the 8660 and others. It only weighs 27 pounds so it seems more portable but what is it lacking compared to others?
Rob G

This printer was just announced....you probably will not see one until around June...

Here is a thread(over at Phil's) discussing the new printer.
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read....essage=2362351

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: johnr ]

[Don_Schenk]

On Kodak's Website, there is a Q&A about the 8500 that compares it to Kodak's other printers. It's here:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/profe...MPQNQHIO2SXWKI

[NorbertBissinger]

Hi Don. How you doing.

That's not the printer you want. Right?

You want the the 13 seconds on fire wire one. Right? Even if it costs $15 to 19.000 but $0.90 a print.

Norbert

[ March 16, 2002: Message edited by: Norbert Bissinger ]

[Don_Schenk]

Hi Norbert,

Yes, yes, yes! I want it...the new Kodak ML-500. I'm drooling already, but my associates are dreading the day I buy one because we will then have to trim all our images.

Right now, we are spoiled. The "film" lab doing our digital printing is local, does a beautiful job, and even delivers the prints to us all cut and ready for customers. All we have to do is slip them into folders.

When I buy an ML-500, we will need to start printing all our 8x10 units in order to justify the $20,000 cost of the machine.

Hmmm...give it a year, the price will come down.

[NorbertBissinger]

I heard the Street price will be around 16M.

Easy calculation if you are outsourcing now.

An extra employee perhaps.

Who knows how long the print heads will last, and how many have to be replaced. I guess to obtain this speed they are using more than one. Should be around 5000 prints and $ 1.800
looking at the proportions versus 8560s

[Don_Schenk]

The waranty on the 8500 is 1 year or 2000 prints. It is a light duty printer. This quantity is just for warranty purposes, and I susupect the 8500 has a much greater life span.

The older 8650 printers had a 1 year or 15,000 print waranty, and the 8660 have a 1 year or 45,000 print warranty. These are heavier duty machines.

Since the ML500 is being targeted to minilabs as a high volume printer, I suspect it will have a waranty and duty cycle similar to the 8660. I'm told by someone at Kodak tech support (who has played with an ML500) that it is quiet. Yes, the ML500 has 4 print heads and prints in a single paper pass over the heads. It then cuts the print from the roll.

If the ML500 is only $16 grand, I might be able to justify it for the jobs I need to print quickly. Hmmmmmmm...the plot thickens.

[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: Don Schenk ]