Most of the portable photo printers you’ll find also produce images that are pretty tiny so they can remain compact and portable to bring with you on your travels.

Finally there are Zink printers that use zero-ink paper, embedded with color crystals, that offers the cheapest printing option –with often middling quality that's neither as good as a dye sub print, nor as intentionally lo-fi as an Instax print. Do portable printers need ink? However, you’re not always after the most petite little prints and if you want something that’ll fit better in a photo album, on a pinboard or within a scrapbook, we think it’s well worth looking at the Instax Link Wide. In essence, it’s similar to any other Instax model on this list, but just a bit bigger and capable of churning out larger reproductions of your precious snaps. Once printed, photos appeared crisp with a surprising amount of detail. However, the color reproduction was not always accurate. The Hi-Print wasn’t the fastest printer that we tested for this guide. However, it isn’t slow enough to be irritating, either. Although the Hi-Print didn’t offer the best image quality of all the models we tested, its prints were still crisp and largely true to the digital photos we used during testing.While, as I said, the printer has a mini USB port for charging, Bluetooth is its only connectivity option. According to Kodak, the onboard battery charges in about 90 minutes and lasts long enough to produce 25 prints. There’s no charging the Kiipix Portable Mini Printer, nor any need to plug it in. Simply load it with Instax Mini film, place your phone face down on the scanner (with the brightness cranked all the way up – trust us), use the reflective mirror to ensure it’s properly aligned, and then you can manually crank out the prints yourself. The Instax Mini LiPlay is not marketed specifically as a portable printer, so this one may be easy to miss. Instead, it's one of a new breed of hybrid digital instant cameras that offer the functionality of an instant camera, a digital camera, and a portable printer in the same device. We reached out to Victure with our concerns. The company responded, telling us it uses the same manufacturer as Kodak for its portable printer. It’s certainly not unheard of in the tech world for two different companies to use the same manufacturer, but they typically offer different features and app interfaces to differentiate themselves.

The Instax Link Wide connects to your smartphone or tablet using Bluetooth, and is operated using the eponymous app for iOS or Android. As mentioned, the dye-sub printer makes four passes—laying down cyan, magenta, and yellow ink, plus a clear coat that helps colors pop and protects the image from fingerprints and dust. (Zero-ink printers use special paper infused with colors released by the printer's application of heat.) Kodak says that, with proper storage, images from the device should last for up to a century. Unlike the wider one, we think this is slim and light enough to stash in your bag and bring on your travels, and the bigger square size works well for a wide range of shots including landscapes, portraits, close-ups and more. The Polaroid Hi-Print is the most well-rounded phone photo printer of all the models we tested. It features a playful, sturdy design and above-average print quality.During testing, the printer appeared immediately in the app. I was ready to print photos within a few minutes of unboxing the device. The main difference is in the type of printing method. Instax models use the same instant photo paper present in the brand’s instant cameras for a real film look, there are several models out there that use Zink (or “zero ink”) paper tech. This is photo paper that takes on colour in a process that uses crystals and heat, but this is notable for a slightly poorer image quality. The Polaroid Hi-Print is a little different than either approach, using dye-sublimation for accurate colours. Print speed No, these portable printers are designed to work with smart devices such as your phone –and, in the case of the Instax Mini LiPlay, to print directly from its integrated camera as well. Do I need a physical cable to connect to the printer? My name is Mike Yawney. I have been reviewing tech products for over 15 years. Most of that time has been spent in front of the camera, talking tech and reviewing everything from smartphones to video games on one of Canada's most popular national morning television programs. While setting up the printer using a Bluetooth connection, it appeared on our smartphones as a Kodak printer. This conflicted with the Victure’s instructions that the device will appear in our Bluetooth pairing list as a “photo printer”. Since we already had a Kodak printer in our test group, it took quite some time to sort this issue out.

Finally. In addition to assessing print quality, we looked at how easy each of the printers was to use. We considered set up, overall useability, companion app functionality, battery life, durability, and the overall user experience. What You Should Know About Buying Portable Photo Printers

Instant Photo Printers

None of the printers we tested offered exceptional battery life. Most could only print between 8 and 12 photos before needing a charge. If you want to print additional photos, you will need to carry a portable charger along. More Articles You Might Enjoy Portable photo printers typically print a single size of photo: 3x3, 2.7x2.7, and 2x3-inch prints. While the larger 3x3 sizes work well for portraits and selfies, the wider 2x3 format is more appropriate for landscape photography. These printers operate wirelessly, using WiFi or Bluetooth technology –or, in the case of the Kiipix, using a mirror! What paper do these printers take? Others used Zink technology. Zink paper is embedded with dye crystals that change color once heat is applied. All portable photo printers work by connecting to your smartphone over Bluetooth, and you’ll then be able to send your photos to the printer via an app. They may allow you to add effects or text before you print too.