This is a bit of an unusual post on the blog, as it’s a tech review, but since this is an essential tool in my travel journaling kit, I still think it’s relevant!
I’ve had the Polaroid Hi Print Photo Printer (the 2nd gen) for over a year now, and recently realised, I’d not talked about it much on the blog. There’s plenty of these small photo printers that print straight from your phone on the market these days, and this is the only one I’ve tried, so admittedly I don’t have much to compare it to. When I was looking to buy one, this seemed like one of the ones that got the best reviews though, and I do love the aesthetics of it, with the white and the rainbow colours!
And I have to say, I have been really impressed with this handy little printer! It’s nice and compact, so easy to travel with, and charges with a USB-C port, which is good, because it means I don’t have to carry too many chargers around. The refills are also compact and easy to reload (you just flip down a little door on the side, slide the empty cartridge out and reload the new one).
It connects to your phone through Bluetooth, and has a simple app that you use to print your photos. The app includes some simple editing options, as well as options to create collages, add borders, stickers and text, but for the most part, has no bells and whistles. Which I personally prefer! For the most part, I just print my photos as they are anyway, which is as simple as going through to the ‘Print from Photos’ option, finding the photo, and hitting print.
The actual printing stage does take quite a while, which might be a deal breaker for some people. The printer pushes the paper in and out, adding three layers of colour, then a protective top layer. You are looking at around a minute per print, which is quite long, although there is something quite fascinating about seeing the colours build up!
The photos themselves are 54mm x 86mm and are self adhesive, so you can peel them off using the white strip at the bottom. The quality of the prints themself are really impressive from such a tiny little printer, with really vibrant colours and great clarity, even with darker photos.
I like the quality of these prints enough that I would use them at home too in my regular journals, if it weren’t for the huge caveat I’d make about this printer: the refills are expensive!
The price of the printer itself, I think is fair, at £89.99, especially as it’s commonly on sale in various places for around £80. But the cheapest I’ve ever found the refills is £43.99 for 60 sheets, which makes it 73p per print, which is quite a lot for a single, small photo! That’s why I usually print photos for my regular journals and notebooks on my home printer, and just use this for convenience when I’m away. I believe this is a common problem with these types of printers though, and also with Polaroid cameras: I guess photo paper is just expensive!
The one other caveat I’d make about this printer is that the battery life isn’t great. If I’m away for a few days I usually use it each evening to print out photos from the day for my travel journal, and I usually do have to recharge at least once.
Overall though, if you’re looking for a mini printer for journaling on the go, I highly recommend the Polaroid Hi-Print, as the quality of the photos is fantastic. It is also really convenient that they are self adhesive, as you don’t need to carry around a glue stick!
So what do you think of the Polaroid Hi-Print printer? Have you ever used one of these mini printers for journaling? Are there any others you would recommend?
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