The HP Sprocket Photo Printer (2nd Edition) offers some nice refinements over the previous version, with a more sophisticated look and more polished mobile app. As of this writing, Best Buy is offering the 20-count package for $5, at a per-photo cost of 25 cents. However, you may be able to get a better price if you watch for bargains. The 100-count pack is slightly less expensive at $44.99, averaging 45 cents per photo. Both the 20- and 50-count packages have a per-photo cost of 50 cents, selling for $9.99 and $24.99, respectively. On HP's website, you can get new photo paper for the Sprocket in 20-, 50- and 100-count packages. HP only offers the photo paper with a sticky backing, which means that every photo can also be a sticker, but if you just want a regular photo, leave the paper backing in place and you won't have to worry about the adhesive. The same technology is used in the Polaroid ZIP Photo Printer and is significantly less cumbersome than the ink-based printing technique that's used in the Kodak Photo Printer Mini. ZINK is an inkless printing technology that uses thermal printing to offer full color photos without using any messy ink or multiple passes for a single photo. The 2nd Edition Sprocket, like its predecessor, uses special ZINK photo paper. Adding the AR content took 39 seconds up front, and actual printing didn't start until the 62-second mark but with long gaps between printing images, the seven photos took an average of 85.7 seconds each. Printing multiple images as a batch actually took longer: Our seven test images took a full 10 minutes to print. MORE: Best Services for Creating and Printing Photo Books The actual printing time was closer to 30 seconds, but that process includes a 5-second period in which it attaches "Reveal" content, and another 15 seconds to transmit the image to the printer. Print times were fairly consistent for individual photos, averaging 55 seconds each. A shot of yellow sunflowers looked sufficiently bright, a beach scene offered accurate blue and green ocean waves, and a second portrait effectively reproduced darker skin tones without difficulty. Other images printed without any problem. Even when printing these images a second time, we saw the same issues, despite seeing no such problem on past Sprocket models or other photo printers. The rose lost all subtle red tones, with the print looking more like an inkblot than an image of a flower, and the subtle skin tones seen in one of our test portraits were lost: The printed colors were so pale as to look almost pure white. Some images, like a red rose and a portrait, suffered from heavily skewed color. Print quality isn't bad compared to similar mobile photo printers, like the Polaroid ZIP Photo Printer or the Kodak Photo Printer Mini, but photos frequently had issues with digital noise, which created artifacts in the image.Ĭolor quality was also wildly inconsistent. The photos are small (2 x 3 inches) and lower-resolution (313 x 400 dpi) than any of the photos your phone's camera will take, but the printer does provide a fun way to get nearly instant prints from your phone or social media accounts. The HP Sprocket promises mobile printing that is both quick and convenient, and on the whole, it delivers. The only real problem I had with the app was that whenever my phone would go to sleep, the printer would have to re-pair with my phone upon waking. MORE: Printers - News and Reviews of All-in-One Printers Without any visible QR code or similar visual tagging method, the app lets you and other Sprocket app users scan a printed image with your camera, and the app will pull up an associated video clip. The printer also improves upon one of the most interesting aspects of the Sprocket printer/app combination – the ability to attach video to your photo. When we did our testing in early February, we saw stickers for Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and Winter, along with a sponsored collection of stickers for the latest How to Train Your Dragon movie. There are also several sticker-style graphics you can add, and the app has a seasonal selection that updates regularly. Once you pull up a photo in the app, you can crop it (though it does keep the aspect ratio of the 2 x 3-inch photo paper), apply color filters, add text and graphics, and more. Within the app, you'll be able to browse through photos from your phone's memory as well as several popular apps, like Instagram, Facebook and Google Photos. Once your phone is paired with the printer, you can personalize a few things, like the name of the device and the color of the power indicator light on the printer.
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