Friday, August 2, 2013

Fun Find Review and Giveaway: Kodak Picture Kiosk

Recently, we were contacted by Kodak and asked to test drive their Picture Kiosk in our neighborhood CVS store. In exchange for our honest opinion, they gave us a $25 gift card to use however we liked.

I'll say right up front, it was an awesome experience.

Kodak's Picture Kiosks (2) at our local CVS
First, I was amazed at how far that gift card went. And honestly, I have to make a return trip to the kiosk because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't manage to spend it all in one sitting!

The kiosk itself is comprised of a touch screen and an on-demand instant printer. I ended up ordering a pile of 4x6 standard size prints, plus three 5x7 enlargements.

The user interface is easy and the next best thing to being at home and ordering from your own computer.

The system will take just about every form of solid state memory currently in use, from a flash drive to a Compact Flash card. It even had a bluetooth option.

Some of the many ways you can upload images to Kodak's kiosk

And, get this: if you have a ton of photos uploaded to your Facebook account and they're organized just how you want them  - you can print from there, too.

Kodak's Print from Facebook menu page
Oh, and they offer a lot more than just prints. Remember that scrapbooking craze, and all that stuff you bought but never got around to making?

With Kodak's collage option, you can create your own designed page without all the sticky, glue-y mess.

There is also a nice selection of 3D products you can order.




After all, who wouldn't want to see Maxwell's cheerful face peering out at them as they drink their morning coffee, we want to know?

You can purchase t-shirts, calendars, posters and even a deck of playing cards to go along with that nice mug, too.

Out of curiosity I went onto Zazzle to see how the prices compared. Again - color me impressed. Kodak beat Zazzle's price for an 11 ounce mug by a nice 25%:  Kodak $12, Zazzle $15.

These types of items do require shipping to you, but that's only logical.  The things they do print on site are photos, enlargements and photo books.

The last surprised me, as I had expected to have to postpone this review while I waited for the book I ordered to be shipped to me. Not so. Whereas the prints and enlargements were practically instantaneous - they printed right there at the kiosk while I watched - the photo book took an hour to create.

I simply did a bit of shopping, came back... and fell in love. Take a look at the three photos below, and you'll see why:

Maxie's eyes as the photo on the cover of the photo book
 


Omigosh. Let me tell you about my photo book experience!

You can select the style of book  - the kiosk offers you a choice of either single or double page. You have several choices for the color of the cover, the design of the photo on the cover, and the design theme of the inside pages.

There are several different themes such as celebrations and events, or everyday designs. Three of the everyday designs are pet-related. I chose the Furry Friends one but you could choose the cat one or the dog one, as well.

Next, the kiosk will load all your photos so you can select which ones you want included in the photo book.

The kiosk will automatically find your memory device and it'll ask you if you want to load by folder or by date, or heck, why not just view everything.

I chose 'by folder', since I'd done a bit of pre-selecting at home.  The interface was easy to follow: simply tap on the photos you want included in the book.

Next you can rearrange and resize - even rotate if the orientation isn't right. I took a short video of the process so you can see how easy it is:




Bottom line, I love these photo books. The quality is great, and the turnaround time cannot be beat.

I can totally see myself creating memory books from vacation photos, holiday get-togethers and the next BlogPaws conference. They'd make wonderful gifts, too!


Giveaway Time!

Kodak has graciously offered to give one lucky reader a $25 CVS gift card, to use in a CVS store in their area that has a Kodak Kiosk. All you need to do is confirm the CVS store in your area has a Kodak Picture Kiosk by checking the store locator at this link here.

Then comment below, giving us your email address so we can contact you. Then come back up and click on the big green "I Commented!" button in the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You have until midnight on Wednesday, August 7th to enter. A winner will be announced on August 9th, next Friday's post.
***

Rules and Disclaimer:  

No purchase necessary to enter. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Winners are chosen using Rafflecopter and will be notified by e-mail. The winner of the giveaway will need to give us a physical address to which the prize will be mailed within 72 hours. 
(no P.O. boxes please) 
If a reply email containing the physical address where the prize should be mailed is not received by that time, an alternate winner will be chosen again by random. The winner will be announced in a separate post following the drawing.
We were given a gift card for the Kodak Picture Kiosk so that we could review their products and services, but were not compensated for hosting the giveaway. All opinions in this article are our own.

23 comments:

  1. As we aren't in the US, we won't be entering the giveaway.
    Mommy has seen those Kodak kiosks around (she thinks) but has never tried them out. Now she thinks she should!
    Thanks for the review!

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  2. What an informative review! Last year I used the Kodak kiosk at our CVS to print some 4 x 6 pictures and I was very impressed (as I am also very impressed by Shutterfly, which used to be Kodak Gallery). But i have not tried things like the books. That is really impressive that it can be done in an hour!!!

    Yes, we know our CVS in our neighborhood has a Kodak Kiosk, and even if we don't win your giveaway, we are sure to be going back to try it again!

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  3. The Rafflecopter doesn't have a chance to click on I Commented, even when logged on. Just Twitter and Facebook.

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  4. We don't have them over here. Good luck with the give-away. Have a fabulous Friday.
    Best wishes Molly

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  5. Your books are beautiful. We'd love to be entered in the giveaway, and we checked ... the CVS by us (several of them, actually) have in-store kiosks! :)

    You already have our email address, right?

    Have a great weekend!

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  6. You book turned out beautifully just from the part we could see. How fun! Count me in, please. - Jobi

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  7. Well this is COOL!!!
    Glogirly love taking our photos...but she frankly sucks at printing anything. This would be an awesome prize!!! We'd for sure do a book like you did! So please sign us up for the giveaway!
    Thanks!!!
    K&W

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  8. Oh wow....this is such a fabulous idea and I was so happy to see there's a CVS Pharmacy in my town that has this equipment! What a great and fun thing to do with fave photos of our fave guys - what a nice giveaway.

    Pam and Sam

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  9. What fun! I'd love to win and give this a try and there's 5 Kiosks within 5 miles of me so it will be easy

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  10. The CVS near us has one of these and we always thought it was for the tourists. We never imagined the photo books were printed on site! That's really neat. Thanks for the informative review.

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  11. We have a CVS with a kiosk! What a great idea for personal gifts...

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  12. Oh yeah we have lots of CVS with kiosks! That is super cool!!!

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  13. We have the kiosks in all the 3 surround stores here- on rafflecopter as livivua
    email: yes.4eva.r(atgmaildotcom)

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  14. how absolutely brilliant of Kodak!

    I have to say I am a huge fan of photo books, I have a small stack of them. I love yours!!

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  15. Our CVS has one so I guess I'm good to go if I win.

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  16. Love this review! I can just imagine myself hogging up the Kodak kiosk lol. Looks like we have some in our area too!

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  17. Does it have to be CVS or anyplace with a Kodak Kiosk. We don't have CVS in Colorado. I love photobooks!

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  18. That is great! I've not looked at any of the kiosks lately, I shall have to do that. Wish we had CSV near us!
    Thanks for the terrific review, you can bet I shall be on the look out for the kiosk!

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  19. Mom was so impressed; even though, she couldn't get the video to play. The humans have several trips coming up, including one to Paris. She's thinking that memory book would be a perfect way to remember it. We hope she wins that gift card. If she does, our e-mail address is: janet.blue@thecatonmyhead.com. Purrs and hugs, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

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  20. Wowzee...we had no idea pictures came out this well! Mom goes to CVS all da time and just walks by this machine..now she'll have to stop even if she doesn't win. After all, *sing song mewing* 'who's da handsomeness kitteh of all??? MEEEE!' *skips off back to Bucky-world*

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  21. Wish we had Kodak Picture Kiosk´s in Sweden too !
    Or maybe not , it could have been furry expensive to let my mom-person in there :)
    XOOX

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  22. I am about to go to the Kodak Kiosk tomorrow to make my photo book for the review on our blog! I was wondering (and you may not even have time to respond to this before tomorrow afternoon), did you use any of the editing tools--like the pet eye fixer, adjusting the brightness or color of the image, etc?

    Thanks!

    Elyse (and Riley)

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  23. Hi Elyse (and Riley)!
    No we didn't - and that'd be a great angle to focus a review on! All our photos had been color corrected and sized prior to copying them to the flash drive I took with me to CVS.
    So glad you got to try this out, too! And nice to meet you guys!

    (Did we meet in D.C at BlogPaws? Our mom is a total airhead these days!! That, and she was totally smitten with Snotface the ferret and spent waaaay too much time consorting with him at BP!)

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Coolio! A comment? For US?