I have been having so much fun with this product, right at home. The intent of purchasing this was to take on my road trips and travel journal as I went (something I've always wanted the ability to do). I have yet to take a road trip since buying, but have played with the printer a lot at home. You have to know what to expect when purchasing this to be happy with the product. You will not get perfectly printed prints from this, like shown on the box/website advertising. The images have a definite blue-green cast to them, like Polaroids of the past and they tend to print on the dark side. I'm okay with this and knew that going in having read the reviews. I find the color cast charming and I only need the image to remind myself of what i'm journaling, and not a perfect representation of what i'm talking about. If I needed that I will print from my home printer or send to a lab.
I do find that in some cases a few prints in I get some streaking. If I run the blue sheet that came with the ZINK photo sheets back through before running my print, I find the streaking goes away. I always run the blue sheet back through before I start printing (if it's been a few hours or a few days) and re-run it through every few prints just to make sure I have no streaking. I think some of it depends on the paper pack and how old it might be, as the other day I did 10 prints back to back without using the blue sheet between and had no issues with streaking. None of my paper packs have expiration dates on them, as I've read, and if you look closely at the packs you can see where they have been rubbed off with alcohol. I'm not sure why they've done this, but you can search and read more about it online.
My battery doesn't last very long, but have found a friend that has the printer say they find the battery to last a good amount of time, so i'm thinking my battery is just defective. This printer does not print directly from the iPhone, but if you are jailbroken there is an app that can be purchased through Cydia for $10 called Celeste Bluetooth File Sharing. They have just released a Beta test for working on the new iOS 5.1, but i'm not sure if you can test the Beta if you hadn't purchased it previously. So far with the Beta it works great. I just go into my photo through the iPhoto app, and send it via Bluetooth to the printer. Prints in a jiffy. This is the only way I've found to print from the iPhone to this printer. I printed to this from my husbands Android phone without any special app's.
If you have an iPhone, but it's not jailbroken, there are other ways to print to this printer. If you shoot with a DSLR you can print directly from the camera's interface. Starting with both devices off, plug the camera into the printer with the cable that came with your camera for USB data transfer. Turn on the printer and then your camera. Go to the photo you want to print on your camera's viewer and it should automatically pop up instructions/print dialog for printing. If you happen to have a Mac or a PC with Bluetooth capability you can also print to the printer via that. This option works well if you have an iPhone, but it's not jailbroken. Because of the Cloud and the ability to put your phone images on you computer via the Cloud, you can easily find those photos on your computer and then send via Bluetooth to the printer. This also works well if you have a photo from an email or other device on your computer you'd like to print. Macs are great with their built-in Bluetooth, but if you have a PC without you can purchase an inexpensive Bluetooth dongle online ($5 range on eBay).
I love this printer, and would give it a 5 star rating if the prints were a little better. Because their advertising shows crystal clear, perfect color prints and that's not what you are getting, i'm giving this 4 stars. With that said, I love this product and would purchase it again in a heartbeat. Know what to expect and you will be very happy with this.
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Customer reviews
Love this! why didn't I know about it sooner??
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2011
fabulous little portable printer that hooks into any digital camera. Perfect for my sketching and watercolor journals and for travel. I can take a photo and add to it my journal page. I've been telling everyone about this.
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2011
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