If you’re like me, you have an expensive camera that takes fantastic photos, but most of your photos wind up being taken on whatever you have on you — your phone. Only just this weekend, I bought myself a little photo printer (an Epson PictureMate PM235 if you must know) so I can print out some of my digital memories to share around, and maybe I should have waited.
You see, it’s all well and good to have digital photos, but you can’t stick digital photos in a scrap book, or send them to your grandma (unless she’s a techno-grandma and knows how to use email). For some things, you just need to be able to have hard copy photos.
You could print them on most home inkjet printers, but they don’t look as good as photos printed on photo paper by a dedicated photo printer, and it seems that LG is bringing just such a device to market.
The LG Pocket Photo printer is tiny. It’s a shade under 2.4cm thick, and weighs just 200 grams. I don’t know that I’d be carrying this printer in my pocket (lest I be accused of being happy to see people) but it’s certainly ultra-portable, and would fit easily into a backpack, handbag, or satchel. Put it this way, I could easily carry it around with me without noticing it amongst the other doodads in my bag.
To achieve this small size, the Pocket Photo printer uses ZINK technology (which we’ve previously seen in newer Polaroid cameras), which is basically specially made photo paper where the necessary colours are already applied to the paper, and the printer merely selectively heats the paper (with incredible precision) to ‘print’ the image.
Connectivity is handled by Bluetooth or NFC meaning it should work with most Android devices, and probably any laptop or computer with bluetooth as well, but our Apple brethren won’t be able to use it with an iDevice without much woe.
Pricewise, you’re looking at around $165, give or take, with paper to come in at around $12.50 for 10 sheets. However, despite quoting you some Australian Dollar figures, at this stage LG is only releasing the device in Korea (where it’s sure to have a good reception) — time will tell whether the Pocket Photo is released in other markets. I’m sure it’ll be possible to obtain it via unofficial channels, anyway.
It’s not cheap, but if you really want ultra-mobile photo printing, then this is a good bet — there aren’t too many other solutions that would be cheaper, that’s for sure.
