In some ways, the world of electronics is a great big game of Us vs. Them, filled with imbalances of power that the little people can’t do anything about. Through learned helplessness, we’ve come to accept that the gadget we buy today will be passé in a year — period. Calling technical support is going to be a nightmare — tough rocks. Buying cartridges for an inkjet printer will cost twice as much as the printer itself — each year.

But a couple of weeks ago, a funny thing happened: Kodak decided to get into the inkjet printer business for the first time (not counting a joint venture with Lexmark a few years ago). And to drive the point home, Kodak decided to turn the razor-blades model of printers and cartridges on its head. Kodak’s printers cost a little more — but the ink, according to Kodak, costs half as much as Hewlett-Packard’s.

The first three Kodak models are all-in-one machines — that is, combination printer/scanner/copiers. They’re good-looking, cleanly designed machines that work with both Mac and Windows.

The base model is called the 5100 ($150); the 5300 ($200) adds a color screen and memory-card slots, so you can print your camera photos without a computer. And the 5500 ($300) adds faxing, a document feeder and double-sided printing. All of these machines contain the same printing guts and accept the same cartridges.