Kodak ESP 3 All-in-One Printer

The ESP 3 is so sleek and compact, you can barely tell it's an MFP--and in fact, it barely is one. Its flatbed scanner lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF) for handling multipage documents. Its control-panel copy button counts up to just 9 (you can make up to 99 copies via Kodak's included scanning software). Its paper handling is also minimal. You flip down a front panel to reveal an open bay. Thin, flimsy extensions pull out from the panel to form a small, 100-sheet input area (which takes plain paper as well as photo stock, envelopes, and other thick media). Printed pages exit from the same bay and simply fall atop the input area. Clearly the ESP 3 is designed for people who plan to produce just a handful of pages at a time.

The control panel looks better than it works. The bar-shaped buttons are sleek, but the labels are in many cases located far away--not right above the buttons or immediately to their side. Some buttons have a name in the documentation but no label on the control panel, which is even more confusing. Status lights turn on or off, blink, or change color to indicate various things, most of them inexplicable unless you check the documentation.