Polaroid Hi-Print pocket printer - Quality at a cost. (UPDATED)

This is why I love your content Mat - it is another walk down memory lane for me. This video reminded me that around 2002 I bought a Sony UP-DP10 dye sub printer to print photos for my family. Like the Selphy, the Sony generated standard 4x3 prints at 300 dpi. Google it. The quality was quite incredible for the time and I suspect would be close to what you are seeing with the Polaroid or the Canon. And this was before there were bazillion megapixel cameras on the market. Unfortunately, Sony discontinued the UP-DP10 printer after a few years and the print packs (25 sheets per box) disappeared from the market - rendering it useless. I can't remember what the print packs cost but at the time I seem to recall the price per print being around $0.50 or $0.60 USD. Not exactly inexpensive but worth it to be able to print at home with dye sub quality. Seeing the printers in your video print yellow, then pull the paper back in to print cyan, and then do the same for blue and the "protective" coating brought back some fun memories for me. I could hear my little Sony doing it's thing in my head. I had no idea there were still consumer dye sub printers out there. Good stuff!

All the way through this video I was wondering why I had an inkjet - until the ending when you show how wasteful they are. Inkjets still have some waste, but at least the inks can be refilled and re-used (depending on the manufacturer, mind). Not sure I like the idea of one now!

Great video! I wasn’t aware of this tech. However, it looks that my peel-apart film (remember those, both Polaroid and Fuji) is even more wasteful. I still have a couple of boxes left, and than it’s gone.

Matt, great video as always.. I still have a Selphy CP810 which I got to print "real photos" for my mum when she was around. I still use it the odd time for passport photos or making gifts for family members. I always use the SD card slot to avoid opening that can of worms that is printer drivers.. One thing that used to perplex me was the ? that would appear on the screen with certain photos which had been edited and saved to a card. According to Canon's support page, this indicates that either the EXIF information or thumbnail have been removed or improperly formatted by the editing program. This is completely untrue - the ? is caused by the photo having been saved in progressive scan mode. My experience is that images saved with the progressive option off will print 100% of the time in my Selphy printer. Just in case you or anyone else has this issue..

Great video - as an independent practitioner in my professional life it's good to see those values upheld. For me it'd be the Selphy every time though (ha ha - not very objective admittedly!) I recall buying one - I'd like to think - well over 10 years ago, perhaps more than 15. At the time it didn't have the Selphy moniker - only Canon - so I can only figure must have been an early version. I remember being consistently amazed by the speed and quality of the results and whilst being a bit on the expensive side was good to print off those special photos. At that time of course digital photo resolution lacked in comparison but the prints were very good indeed. I particularly liked the ease of sliding those 's' shaped cartridges in and stacking up the paper in the laser printer/photocopier style caddy, pushing the button and the immediacy by which the prints were produced. It's interesting that amongst some bells and whistles the technology still holds up today. Although the Polaroid is undoubtedly a marvel you can give me the larger prints any day of the week and I'm going to be satisfied. Particularly liked the insight into the economics and waste comparisons in this video. I suppose in a world where realistically your only option for getting prints on the high street is to fumble about with a kiosk the technology is a boon. Factoring in the cost of visiting the town/city is something to bear in mind as well, perhaps. What I would give to get a 35mm developed just like old times, though - and of course I'm well aware of your previous efforts in that regard! Thanks once again for a well produced, informative video.

Great video! I'm really glad you included a section about waste too!

After dipping a picture in water, you mention that it is safe to mount it outside in the rain. But do you know anything about the UV resistance of these photos? I'm hoping the protective layer has some UV resistant properties, but I also guess any such feature would darken the finished image. So probably not? 🤔

Given the large volume of plastic waste, but the high quality of the photo prints, I tend to think it’s a good thing that the dye sub prints and printers aren’t TOO cheap. Makes one more intentional about which photos one prints.

Your presentation was spot-on. I was tempted to buy this until I realized I probably wouldn't have much use for it. 😳 The picture at 4:30 seems to have vertical streaks across the blue sky, by the way... 🤔 And it suprises me that they didn't choose Wi-Fi for file transfers. Bluetooth took over 30 seconds in your demo! Wi-Fi Direct could have halved that, at least. Am I right it doesn't use USB-C either? Another minus... But I enjoy the design, with a Polaroid rainbow slot. It really complements the dye-sub process! Too bad the device isn't available in black or grey, though. Also, I'm not terribly environmentally conscious but the cartridge seemed sturdy enough, metal rollers and all, that Polaroid could probably implement a refill scheme. Spent dye-sub film can be repurposed as colourful streamers. 😛

The dye sublimation technology's waste stream is minimal compared to the options. With ink jet printers, there are typically a number of "fails" where the colors or contrast are unsatisfactory. And the reject prints go in the trash, along with older prints that faded. The ultimate comparison, however, is to analog C41 processing, which entails the use of several highly toxic liquids both to develop the negatives and then the prints made from them. These chemicals have limited usage and, when they're exhausted, where do they go? Either into the local water treatment plant, or poured out on the ground.

I use a dye-sub printer to print student and staff IDs at work. I never knew the process was available in the outside world. The ID card printer uses 2 ribbons. One with the 3 colors, and one with the clear protective film. I’ve always felt that the system was wasteful, like you state in the video. It’s also very susceptible to dust marring the picture, although that could be because the PVC cards are prone to static buildup. I’m still one who burns the occasional cd “mixtape” and I like to do fancy artwork, which I currently print directly onto the disc. It would be neat if I could do that with dye sub. Okay, come to think about it, I haven’t burned a disc in over a year. But I’d still like to!

What a neat little photo printer. So is the Canon Selphy. Anyone old enough to remember the original colour Polaroid film, where a developer layer is peeled away after the photo is 'processed', would remember the waste and goopy chemicals involved in that, too. Something for something, I guess.

Huh. Privacy alert. I wonder how many consumers know that the photos are retrievable from the spent cassette.

I have the sudden urge to try and source ribbons for my A4 Fargo Primera dye-sub printer (it could use three and four colour ribbons).

Great video as always, with a very interesting point at the end. However, I don't think it was clear that the waste is due to the dye sublimation process, and not Polaroid's implementation of it. Or are you saying that there are dye sub printers that don't produce the waste?

If you disassemble the cartridge, cut the 3 colour panels and over lay them, would you get a stained glass version of the photo?

Awesome review as always. Would you mind posting scan of the same photo printed by your Canon Selphy and this Polaroid? Thanks!

I like the brain dump!

Brilliant video and product. This is precisely the sort of thing I'd like to take with me on my next international travel, whenever that may be. However, the waste does concern me. Do you know if Polaroid themselves have any information about recycling the "ink" cartridges?

Thanks for another great video! I've been using a Canon Selphy since 2006 (!), probably the longest I've ever used any particular computer hardware and in comparison always found the zink printers' quality totally unacceptable. I'll probably get this Polaroid now.

In regards to the color accuracy, I see you're sending photos via your phone. Might there be some mismatch with color profiles? I'm a shutterbug, so have pro photo editing software and have calibrated monitors: I find printers can be pretty accurate in color if you have a calibrated display and software profile that lets you specify your printer and paper stock. As for the review: thank you for highlighting this interesting technology. Never considered there would be dye subs for small formats. I wouldn't buy it, as I do like larger formats (my personal photo printer goes to 13x19).

That was really interesting, Mat. I have never considered buying a pocket printer but that's quite impressive - in fact, they both are. That waste plastic IS a problem though - we have enough of that already. If they only took them in the printer cartridge recycling thing at Tesco I'd consider it. Thanks for a thoughtful review.

Interesting little machine and indeed the quality is impressive. Covering the waste aspect is to be commended. In my own life I feel a bit guilty about another wasteful activity: using a coffee machine that takes pods. Lots of plastic waste there, too.

I see you shaved for the passport photos Mat! It's a great little printer, teenagers would love it, but a shame about the waste.

When I first started teaching at art school in the mid-90s, we had a letter-size dye sub printer. We charged $20 a page, and the school lost about $2 dollars on every print.

If I bought one I would use it as a party trick for family events. A souvenir like you suggested and also as a quick lesson on how color printing works. Maybe as a temporary badge printer for visitors or workers that forgot their badge.

I loved the video and the way you addressed the waste issue -- with being informative, not judging -- really adds the icing to the cake. Well done!

Do they take back the used cartridges like printer manufacturers do that for inkjet cartridges? Or do you need to throw them away after use? (or shred them before to make the images inaccessible)

The larger "Print your own photos" machines in Boots are Dye Sub. I know because I watched them reload one when it ran out of paper half way through printing about 100 photos. While the Canon Selphy is great I wasn't going print that many photos using mine, plus the Boots machines could do 7 x 5.

I never thought you would stoop as low as subliminal messages, but here we are.

Interesting video. I have the original ZINK version and was wondering if you have any direct comparisons of the same photo printed on each?

I quite like printing my own vinyl stickers and this machine seems ideal, from experience how do the prints from any of these printers handle the sun?

Do the Selphy dye sub printers use a comparable system? I.e. are they just as wasteful as the small Polaroid?

I do appreciate the attention paid to ecological concerns. People really don't take those into consideration nearly enough when we buy new kit.

Although potentially wasteful, the unspooled dye ribbon wadded up is strangely beautiful!

That was very interesting. And, love the explanation as to why you prefer to purchase things you review.

If you're ever interested in doing a comparison with traditional chemical based Polaroid film I'm an avid collector and would gladly donate an 80s era 600 series camera and some film

I like the whole brain dump though!