I Wasted $4,200 Learning the Difference Between Kodak Printers and Mimaki UV Printers

Six years ago, I was the person who pressed "print" for a small merchandising company. Not the owner, not a trained operator—just the guy who took the blame when colors looked wrong. Over four years, I made nine significant mistakes that cost roughly $4,200 in wasted budget. That number excludes the embarrassment. Now I write our team's pre-print checklist, mostly so I don't have to explain my own failures again.

This article is a comparison of two very different printer paths I've used: Kodak's portable photo printing lineup and Mimaki's industrial UV printers. They aren't direct competitors. But if you've ever stared at a purchase order and wondered whether a $150 photo printer or a $30,000 production machine is right for you, this one's for you.

Why I'm Comparing Two Printers That Don't Compete

From the outside, a Kodak Mini 2 Retro 4Pass portable photo printer and a Mimaki UV printer have nothing in common. One fits in a bag and produces small glossy photos. The other is the size of a small car and can print on wood, acrylic, glass, and even phone cases.

The reality is that I've seen businesses pick the wrong one because they only looked at "can it print?" instead of "what am I actually producing?" The comparison below uses four dimensions: total cost, workflow speed, color fidelity, and the learning curve. For each dimension, I'll tell you which side wins and where my assumptions collapsed.

Dimension 1: Total Cost — The Hidden Math in Both Directions

Let's start with the Kodak Mini 2. The device price is low—under $200. But the Kodak 4Pass media packs add a per-print cost that you can't ignore. For a 30-photo event, that's fine. For a 600-photo order, the math gets ugly. The Kodak Printer Dock is even more of a lifestyle device: you dock your phone, hit print, and get a 4x6 with a protective layer. That's extremely good for what it is.

The Mimaki UV was a different kind of shock. The purchase price is high. The inks are expensive. You may need air compressors, ventilation, and a technician. But the cost per printed item drops dramatically as volume increases. If you're printing thousands of parts, the fixed cost of a Mimaki makes sense. If you're printing 12 branded notebooks, it makes sense only if you already own the machine.

I learned this in a costly way. In 2021, I decided we needed in-house capability and bought a rugged desktop printer that seemed like a compromise—it could print on a few materials. The upside was brand control and faster prototypes. The risk was that the per-unit cost was nearly four times higher than outsourcing to a shop with a Mimaki. I kept asking myself: is the convenience worth paying $1,850 extra per batch? Nine times out of ten, the answer was no. That was my $4,200 lesson.

Oh, and if you're mailing any of this, factor in postage. USPS First-Class Mail letter rates hit $0.73 in January 2025 (usps.com/stamps), and a 200-piece mailout adds $146 before you even count packaging. "Cheap" printing can get expensive fast.

Dimension 2: Workflow Speed — Not What's Printed, but What's Done

Here's where I almost made a job work with the wrong tool. In September 2022, I accepted an order for 200 custom phone cases. I assumed a small desktop printer could grind through the volume overnight. It couldn't. Each print had to dry, cure, and be handled carefully. The job took almost three days. The client needed it in one.

A Mimaki UV printer would have done the same work in under an hour. Not because it's "faster" in the way people think, but because its workflow is built for production: media handling, curing, and repeatability are baked into the machine. The speed isn't just the print engine—it's the whole system.

But remember: speed is relative. For a single 4x6 photo at a wedding, the Kodak Mini 2 is instant. If you're printing 30 photos for the guest books, it's a pleasant activity. If you're printing 30 photos for a product launch, it's slow. The question isn't "how fast is the printer?" It's "how fast do you need it, and who's going to operate it?"

From the outside, people assume that buying a faster printer makes production faster. What they don't see is that setup, testing, and reprints swallow the time you thought you'd save.

Dimension 3: Color Fidelity and the Color Printer Test Page

This is where I've spent most of my career frustration. Color is a language that printers don't speak natively.

The Kodak Mini 2 Retro 4Pass uses thermal dye sublimation with an overcoat layer. That means colors are stable, durable, and consistent—for a certain kind of image. It's excellent for portraits and everyday photos. It's not designed for matching a specific brand color on a notebook cover.

The Mimaki UV, by contrast, is capable of many colors that a photo printer can't produce, especially on unusual substrates. But that capability only shows up if you know how to build a color profile. And that's where I see people get burned. They assume a $30,000 machine will automatically know correct colors. It won't. It will happily print wrong colors, beautifully and consistently, if you tell it to.

My advice, which I'd rather give before you buy anything: run a color printer test page. Not a random JPEG from the internet. Use the same test file every time: a portrait with skin tones, a gradient that shows banding, a neutral gray ramp, and a few blocks of pure CMYK. That one image has saved me more money than any budget tool.

Per FTC guidelines (ftc.gov), advertised claims need proof. I apply that standard to my own print approvals. If the test page doesn't match, I don't approve the job—no matter how convincing the vendor's sample wall is.

Dimension 4: Learning Curve — From Plug-and-Play to Plug-and-Pray

The Kodak Printer Dock and Mini 2 are about as close to plug-and-play as printing gets. You connect via the companion app, pick the photo, and print. My 70-year-old father could do it without reading a manual. That's a feature, not a bug.

Mimaki UV printers require much more. RIP software, substrate settings, head height, curing parameters—it's more like a factory tool than a printer. The first time I used one, I forgot to set the media thickness correctly. The print head crashed into the substrate. That repair was roughly $1,100. The lesson: with a production printer, the learning curve is part of the total cost.

And what if your actual need is shipping labels? That's the other rabbit hole I fell into. I spent a week trying to get photo-oriented printers to do something a $35 thermal label printer does effortlessly. If you search "munbyn label printer how to use," the basics are straightforward: load the roll, install the driver, calibrate the sensor, and print a test label. The hidden step is sensor calibration—people skip it and blame the printer. I've been that person. It wasn't the printer.

What I'd Choose Now (Based on Your Real Output)

If you're printing small quantities of photos at events, or you need something your least technical staff member can use, pick Kodak—either the Kodak Mini 2 Retro 4Pass or the Kodak Printer Dock. The cost per print is higher, but the total cost includes zero training, zero maintenance, and zero crying in the supply closet.

If you're running a production shop with steady volume, repeatable products, and trained operators, a Mimaki UV printer is worth the investment. But don't buy it to "grow into it." Buy it because you already have a pipeline that needs it.

For everything in between, consider outsourcing. Online printers like 48 Hour Print work well for standard products in quantities from 25 to 25,000. Their main value isn't speed—it's certainty. Achieving certainty with your own staff is often more expensive than ordering the prints from someone whose entire workflow is built around it.

If you take one thing from this article, take this: the right printer is the one that matches your job size, your operator skill, and your profit margin. Everything else is a spec sheet.