According to an article from earlier this month on the PC Magazine website,
there is a new mobile technology out there to compliment the camera phones
which are the choice of so many people these days. Two companies, Dell and
Polaroid have developed and released new pocket-sized printers. The new
technology the enables the innovation is something called "ZINK". ZINK utilizes
a special paper that is embedded with dye crystals. To create the images,
the printers utilize a thermal print head, which means that they do not
have to be very large at all. The dimensions have to be slightly larger
than the photos they print, which still makes it not a large printer.
Currently, there are only two manufacturers that use this ZINK technology, Dell and Polaroid. Polaroid also has gone a step further by integrating a digital camera and printer into one, a similar concept to the old school Polaroid cameras, except digital. Listed below are short descriptions of each.
A small printer that fits in your pocket and weighs a mere eight ounces. It
prints 2" x 3" photos in about a minute and is capable of printing from cell
phones and cameras via Bluetooth or PictBridge connections. If color matters
to you, it is available in blue, pink, or black.
This was the first such ZINK product to come on the market. Like the Wasabi,
it is lightweight and small. It is also able to print photos over a Bluetooth
or PictBridge connections. The only differences between this and the Wasabi
are the colors available for the exterior(this one comes in red instead of
blue), and the price (this costs about half as much as the Wasabi).
The Instant Digital Camera is essentially the same thing as the Mobile Printer,
but with a camera attached to it. The camera adds about four ounces in weight,
but it still weights under 1lb. The advantage here though is that the pictures
can be instantly printed after you take them. It just doesn't get much more
convenient than that.
($149)
($80)
($200)