My husband is great at gifting me with cool gadgets that I didn’t even realize I wanted until I was happily playing with them. His latest pick for me is Polaroid’s ultraportable PoGo Instant Digital Printer. This one is going to be a lot of fun!
This printer is extremely portable. Small and light, it’s not much larger than my smartphone. Standard color is black; red and pink are available for an extra charge. The extra charge for the pink one supports breast cancer research. The extra charge for the red one just goes to make me happy. You all know how much I like the color red for my personal electronics.
There is a nice neoprene case available with a pocket for extra photo paper or a spare battery.
The photo paper is 2″ x 3″ with a peel and stick back. It uses ZINK Imaging’s Zero Ink technology. Heat from the printer activates dye crystals embedded in the paper. The print emerges dry to the touch and is supposedly waterproof and smudgeproof. The printer holds a 10-pack of photo paper and must be empty before you can load another pack.
The photo on the top is from my BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone and the photo on the bottom is from my Nikon Coolpix S50 digital camera. Since these are photos of photos, you won’t really be able to get a good idea of photo quality, which is acceptable for prints of this size.
Getting set up to print via Bluetooth from the BlackBerry was very easy, using the BlackBerry’s Bluetooth settings menu to discover and pair with the PoGo. Then it was a matter of selecting a photo, selecting “Send Using Bluetooth,” and selecting the printer.
Printing from the Coolpix camera was even easier, but a little more cumbersome since it uses the USB cable supplied with the camera. Once the two devices were connected, the PictBridge print option was automatically displayed along with on-screen prompts to help select and print a picture.
Sizing of the photo to best fit the 2″ x 3″ print area is automatic. You can print from any device that has Bluetooth transfer capability or that is PictBridge enabled. There is a compatibility guide on the Polaroid website. Sorry, iPhone users: even though you have Bluetooth, you do not have the transfer capability needed to print.
So far, I’ve really had some fun with this printer. Since the print size is so small, it does not replace a desktop photo printer. Unless you use an outside service for all of your photo printing, you’ll still want to have a desktop printer. But the PoGo’s extreme portability makes it a natural to accompany you anywhere. There’s something about having a paper print in hand, and this will be fun to have at parties and other gatherings, just like it was always fun to have a Polaroid camera around back in the old days when all cameras shot film.
I have not received compensation for this review, and I have no connection to Polaroid. The printer was purchased by my husband as a gift for me.
(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 21 of 31)