Archive for January 9th, 2011

Polaroid announces new mobile instant printer

Incredibly, it’s almost two and a half years since I reviewed Polaroid’s first instant mobile printer, the PoGo. Personally I thought that the technology itself was impressive, utilising special ‘Zink’ paper that requires no ink to produce a colour image.

The main limiting factor for the PoGo was the size of the prints, just 3×2 inches they were little more than stickers. The print quality was ok, nothing stunning but it was certainly cool to be able to go away with family and friends on a day trip and be able to print pictures from the day’s events there and then.

The PoGo was pretty battery hungry too, from a full charge you could probably expect, perhaps 10 prints. That would probably be enough for most people though as when it was first launched the special paper cost in the region of 40p per page!

I’m not sure whether the PoGo should be described as a success or a failure. When it first went on sale it was pretty expensive, about £100 and the paper was around £3-4 for 10 sheets. Not too many people splashed out and bought them until the prices began to tumble, in fact you can now get the printer for under £30 on Amazon and the paper is a much more reasonable 10p per page.

This week at CES Polaroid announced their new Instant Mobile Printer, the GL10. This new printer not only looks neater and small but also has a more respectable 4×3 inch paper handling and a claimed 40 prints from one charge.

I’ll be trying to get my hands on one over the coming weeks and hope to review soon. The full press release can be found below.