Every once in a while I get a product that surprises me in what it is and what it can do. I’ve reviewed a lot of stuff and I’ve learned that the majority of the products out there are never what you expect, especially if you believe the marketing hype surrounding them. Sometimes though I get a product like what I have today that is actually fun and exceeds my expectations.
Today for review I’ve got the Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer. The name Polaroid is synonymous with instant photos and that’s what you get from this printer, little 2” x 3” photos. The Pogo connects to your phone via Bluetooth or it can connect to your camera via USB cable and you can print out instant photos in a matter a seconds. It uses Zink photo paper so there’s no messy ink involved at all. The Pogo is not a bad product, it works and works well and it’s a lot of fun. If you’re expecting studio quality prints, you’re not going to get them, but you will get decent little photos that are fun to share with your friends. As a bonus the prints are actually stickers! So read on to check out a rather cool little product…
Specifications:
Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer
Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Bluetooth Printer – Enjoy Instantly Anywhere!
-Print Speed: 60 seconds per print, from send to share
Polaroid PoGo – short for Polaroid-on-the-go – is a pocket-sized, inkless digital photo printer that produces full-color photos wirelessly from mobile phones and via PictBridge from digital cameras. Weighing only eight ounces, Polaroid PoGo provides consumers with a convenient solution to sharing digital images trapped on cell phones and digital cameras. Connecting via Bluetooth or PictBridge, Polaroid PoGo uses a revolutionary ZINK Zero-Ink Printing Technology to produce borderless, full-color, 2-inch by 3-inch prints in less than 60 seconds.
How It Works:
The full-color digital photos are created without ink cartridges or ribbons using ZINK Photo Paper, keeping the printer to about the size of a deck of cards.The paper is a durable material that contains colorless cyan, yellow and magenta dye crystals. Heat activation brings photos to life, colorizing ZINK dye crystals, so digital photos can be shared instantly.
Zink Paper with the Polaroid Pogo:
* Each Photo measures 2 inches x 3 inches
* Full bleed, borderless images
* Peel-off back – To use Photo’s as stickers.
* Prints dry-to-touch, Smudge-proof, water-resistant & virtually tear-proof photos
* Fade-resistant, long-lasting images
* No waste – no ink cartridges
Price: $47.26
Unboxing:
MobileFun actually sent me the printer and a 30 pack of paper as well for review.
The box kind of got a little beat up during shipment, but the contents were fine.
It’s actually two boxes, when you open the first box you’re greeted with another one.
Inside you’ll find documentation, the printer, power adapters and paper. The adapters I got were for Europe, but I’ve got plenty of adapters here so it wasn’t a problem for me.
The printer itself is small, but rather heavy for it’s size, but it’s still more than lightweight enough to be portable.
On the back you’ll find the battery compartment.
On the right side is the USB connection, power button and two LED indicators for busy, charging, power on and low battery. The LEDs change colors to red, green or yellow depending what’s gong on.
On the left side is just the power connection and the back has a button that unlocks the paper tray.
The front has a slot where your printed picture come out:
Overall it seems like a sturdy product, but I wish it came standard with a carrying case. I looked around online and you can get a carrying case for between $5 and $10 depending where you look, so that’s not too bad, but still I think it should come with one since it’s meant to be a portable device.
Installation, Performance, Comparison
To use it you’ll need to charge the battery and add the paper. The op opens up and you can just slip the paper into. You can only have 10 sheets at a time though.
The paper is small, 2” x 3” or about the size of a business card.
The Pogo can be used with most any phone or camera with the exception of a few phones like the iPhone and I found it doesn’t work with the new Palm Pre Plus either.
It connects to the Palm Pre Plus fine but there’s no option to send the picture to the printer from the phone.
I paired it with my AT&T Tilt and it worked perfectly fine with it.
Printing takes about 45 seconds to print a picture. There is a delay between the time you hit send and the time the printer starts printing, about 20 seconds or so. I’m guessing it’s the transmission time and the time to process the picture in the printer itself.
The print time though seems to depend on the quality or size of the print. Those printed from my phone were done faster than those 5MP and above pictures from my cameras.
The quality you’ll get is dependant upon the camera itself, pictures taken with a phone are usually not that good to begin with so don’t expect the printer to make them better.
As far as using with a camera, I tried three cameras I have on hand. My Fuji S5100, a Kodak C713 and an older Kodak CX7530 that’s about five years old.
Pictured below is the C713 for example:
The point is that it worked perfectly fine with even my older Kodak camera. I connected the printer to my camera and it recognized it immediately and entered PictBridge mode and asked me which pictures I wanted to print.
Pictures printed directly from the camera take longer than those from a phone but they’re higher quality, larger size. The time to print is much shorter though since you’re using a direct connection.
The image quality is not bad as long as the source is good, but just don’t expect studio quality prints, you won’t get them. The Pogo is more of a fun gadget aimed at younger people, I’m sure teens and children will love the ability to print photos instantly from their phones and cameras.
Honestly I wasn’t expecting much in terms of print quality so my standards were set low, but I was pleasantly surprised by the decent quality of them
One great feature is that the photos are instant, as soon as they come out of the printer they are dry to the touch.
Another neat aspect of the prints is that they’re also stickers, my kids love this part of it.
The paper itself is actually inexpensive, I priced around and found 30 sheet packs for less than $10 most places. I even found the 30 sheet packs for as low as $5 on Ebay. Well some people might think it’s expensive when compared to actual film or photo paper, but it’s a specialized product and I don’t think the price is too bad honestly. You’re paying for convenience essentially.
Conclusion:
Personally I like the Polaroid Pogo a lot, it’s great little gadget that is a lot of fun to play with. If you’ve got kids or teens they’ll absolutely love it, my kids do and even my wife thinks it’s a neat product.
It’s simple and very easy to use with compatible cameras and phones.
When it comes to the Polaroid Pogo printer you’ve got to remember one thing, it’s more of a gadget or maybe even might be considered a toy. It’s not meant to give you studio quality prints, it’s meant to be a fun accessory that offers instant and fun access to your pictures and that it does well.
Pros:
+No ink
+Simple to use
+Instant pictures on the go
+Paper is inexpensive
+The pictures are stickers as well
+Works with most phones and cameras for instant printing
+Well made
Cons:
-Rather slow printing
-Not exactly studio quality prints
-Only get about 14 prints per battery charge
Ratings
Overall: 4 out of 5
Performance:4 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality: 5 out of 5
Disclosure: This product was given to Bona Fide Reviews for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products.
