Polaroid’s instant photo cameras use to be the one hit wonder of the instant gratification world but as of recently Polaroid has stated to the populace that they will be discontinuing their film for the cameras. That will naturally turn those old cameras into great vintage paper weights. So what have they replaced it with? The new Polaroid PoGo printer! (There’s some speculation that PoGo stands for Polaroid on the Go!)

For starters, the PoGo is Bluetooth enabled, meaning that you can send any pictures you take with your camera phone straight to the PoGo for instant printing. You can also connect the PoGo to your camera phone, digital camera, or computer via USB port. It also supports PictBridge technology.

The PoGo printer enables fast and instant drying technology called ZINK or ‘Zero Ink Technology’ which is a type of film developed by ZINK Imaging (in partnership with Polaroid) that uses no ink in development. Instead the Zink paper has a billion little canisters full of magenta, cyan, and yellow dye which is enabled by one hundred heat passes from the PoGo printer machine. This technology boasts the fact that it uses zero ink making it eco friendly, small, portable, and handy. It is also run by rechargeable batteries. A typical printing time of one photo takes less than 60 seconds. Now that’s pretty fast technology!

The Zink paper boasts fade resistance, smudge resistance, tear resistance, and water resistance. It also has sticky backs, which is an adhesive backing, for putting your photo’s on the wall or all over your bosses’ (professor’s) desk.

The PoGo Printer is no small feat (despite it’s size) encompassing over 100 patents in the process of it’s creation but it still has some flaws that can be irksome to the most hard-hearted of photographers. The fact that it is small is a double edged sword in that it only prints photos in 2 x 3” inch print. It will be nice to see bigger versions of this printer come out. Also if handled a bit on the hard side right after print, the photo’s can warp in color a little so they must be handled with care when hot off the printer. Also heat can damage the photo. The printer does have compatibility issues with a few phones but for the most part it’s a one-size-fits-all device. There are also some complaints that the photo’s are a little “washed out”.

The price range for the Polaroid PoGo printer is anywhere from $150 US dollars to $200 US dollars. A 30 pack of prints goes for about $10 US dollars or a 10 pack for around $4 US dollars. Right now they seem to be only sold at Best Buy but there is assurance that they will be available at other stores in the near future.

(Sources: Wired Blog Network, ForeverGeek.com, Gadgetell.com, BetaNews.com)

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