The Best Portable Photo Printers of 2020

This small unit doesn’t use the ZINK system, but rather relies on a small dye sublimation ribbon cartridge, similar to the Canon Selphy printer, but at a smaller size. It prints 2x3-inch images and connects to smartphones via Bluetooth or near-field communication (NFC) technology. Kodak sells the ribbon and paper in bundles of 20, 30, and 50 sheets.

In our tests, it produced the best quality images of all the smaller printers, but this quality came at the price of speed—the printer was a lot slower compared with the others we tested. In some cases, the app stalled when processing a photo or sending it to the printer. We also enjoyed the apps from the other printers more than the Kodak app.

If you’re older than 30, the photos produced by the Fujifilm Instax Share will remind you of Polaroid instant cameras from the 1970s and 1980s. Photos print somewhat quickly, in general under a minute, and its quality for colors was pretty good. Like some other modern portable photo printers, this mobile printer doesn’t require ink. Instead, it uses special paper and film that you buy separately.

The app features Instagram-like filter options for modifying the images, such as changing something to black-and-white or sepia tone, or if you choose the “Intelligence filter,” it will automatically adjust the image to the best possible quality. Unfortunately, the app lacks features that let you do more with your prints, like add fun borders or draw onto the image like with other apps/prints.

The smartphone only connects to the printer via Wi-Fi. This is good and bad: On the good side, it’s generally easier to connect to the printer’s own Wi-Fi network, but you can’t do anything else with your smartphone while connecting to the printer. On several occasions, the printer powered down and my smartphone re-connected to my home Wi-Fi network, requiring me to change my phone’s Wi-Fi settings once the printer came on again.

It’s not surprising that the company that invented instant photo printing also has a mobile photo printer. What surprised us was how average the prints looked. The 2x3inch prints looked darker or flatter than those from the Kodak or Prynt device. Polaroid sells ZINK paper in packs of 20, 30, or 50 prints.

Like the Kodak Mini 2, we experienced some stalls during the photo processing portion of printing, requiring us to restart the app and try again. Battery life was also an issue – the printer required a recharge before we could print our 10th photo—it felt like the printer would last longer than just nine photos before needing more power.

On the plus side, the Polaroid app was fun to use—it was very intuitive and let us add fun things like borders, stickers and other designs to our photos before printing.

The HP Sprocket looks almost exactly like the Polaroid ZIP model—it would be hard to tell them apart if you didn’t see the company’s logo on the printer. Since both use the ZINK paper system, they have the same loading procedure, and in theory, the same photo quality.

The difference between HP and Polaroid came down to the apps—the HP was a bit more difficult to use than the Polaroid app. However, HP required a firmware update that also gave me additional borders and stickers to use. We didn’t experience any photo stalls and most of our photos printed in about a minute. Regarding image quality, however, there were better options from the other printers we tested.

The color and black-and-white prints produced by the CP1300 were outstanding. If you’re willing to sacrifice some portability to print 4x6-inch images of higher quality, this unit is worth a look. In our tests, it out-performed the Prynt Pocket in every category except portability.

It’s still much smaller than a standard desktop photo printer or multifunction unit, but it requires a power outlet, which means you won’t be able to print photos while hiking or boating. (Although Canon now offers a bundled printer and battery, which we did not test.)

This printer doesn’t use the ZINK system for printing, instead choosing a cartridge style that can produce a limited number of photos before it needs to be replaced. One cartridge produces all of the color images, so you don’t need to buy separate cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, like for a regular printer.

The CP1300 can connect to your Wi-Fi network or print from an SD memory card or USB memory stick. One downside—there’s no app to print from your phone, so you would need to transfer those images to a memory card or your computer before printing.

This printer, which prints 4x6-inch photos, also requires a power source. It’s more likely to sit on your desk or an end table rather than inside a backpack. A cool feature of this printer is its ability to dock your smartphone—similar to the Prynt Pocket, but without the portability.

Like the Mini 2, this model uses the dye sublimation ribbon cartridge when printing photos, and you can connect to a Wi-Fi network if you want to print images from a computer instead of a phone.

Two things doomed this printer—first, our photos took a long time to print, the longest of all those tested. Second, we were unhappy with the Kodak app to print the photos. Similar to the Mini 2, it stalled a few times when trying to print, which shouldn’t have happened since the phone was directly connected to the printer.