Polaroid - Polaroid Lab Instant Printer

Polaroid only makes one “printer” that makes “Polaroid looking” pictures, and that’s the Lab. To use this, you have to buy this product and their Polaroid film. The upside is it will print you little Polaroid pictures on their classic format, the negative is that Polaroid film is a little more expensive. Personally, I’d rather shoot the real deal than just print stuff. https://www.polaroid.com/en_us/printers/lab-printer Instax by Fujifilm is another option, and they have three size formats, Wide, Square, and Mini. They also make two camera-printer hybrids that snap a pic and then print on demand. I own one of these, and it goes both ways. Snap a pic, hit print, send that pic to your phone, or take a pic with your phone, send it to the camera, hit print. I own the Wide Evo. https://instax.com/wide_evo/en/ But they also make the Mini Evo. https://instax.com/mini_evo/en/ Finally, Instax also makes just printers in all three of their formats. https://instax.com/printer/ Instax is usually cheaper. I always prefer shooting with a Polaroid camera though. I own three, so far. Occasionally, I’ll switch it up and use Instax. I own an Instax Wide 210 for analog shooting, and the Instax Evo Wide for parties and printing out funny Internet memes to mail to people. Finally, there are a plethora of 4 x 6 printers that are incredibly economical, Canon Selphy, the Polaroid Hi-Print, the Liene Amber. They’re cost-effective, the prints come in boxes like envelopes, however, these do not have the little borders. These are just photo print makers. Best of luck. Let me know if you have any questions.

I like this printer, but if you a looking for something to look like a Polaroid, the Lab is what you would want to get. I have both . In my opinion The Hi-Print is the better printer, but The Lab is more fun to use. So I guess it comes down to, do you want the picture to look exactly like the picture on your phone every time you print, or do you want to have an imperfect picture from your phone that has the nostalgic Polaroid feel?

I recently went down the portable printer rabbit hole too... This is what I found: Instax - undeniably charming, film is kinda expensive, but the feel of an instant photo is pretty awesome. Unfortunately adds bulk to my scrapbook though. Kodak Mini 2 Retro - my sister has one, and LOVES it. According to her it's been pretty reliable. Kodak Mini Retro Square - Bought this from Walmart because there was a sale. The paper also seems to be the cheapest out of the sublimation printers BUT quality control sucks. I maybe got one good print, before the cartridge got jammed, and wasting the rest of the paper. It was incredibly disappointing. I returned it, and got another just in case, and same thing happened. IMO not worth it, at least this last batch Polaroid Lab - This is my husband's, this is by far the most expensive film. There is definitely a learning curve too as it still has that "mysterious how will it turn out" vibe. You'll learn eventually, but for my purposes (wanting easy instant nice photos) it was a no go. My husband loves the thing though. The square photos are fun, especially the black and white photos. Canon QX20 - To be fair, this one is one of the pricier options. I was able to catch a sale where it was $20 cheaper. The price though can potentially be justified: 1. it can print both card and square prints (not at the same time, but you can potentially go back and forth. 2. The paper is actually sticker paper, which is perfect for scrapbooking and keeping bulk to a minimum. I've gifted these, and people actually seem delighted that it's a sticker. There is a white strip where they use it to move the paper, but that can easily be cut or not cut. The connectivity has been mostly reliable (every so often it will have a little trouble connecting, but it might be my old phone) The battery life is technically supposed to be able to last 20 prints, with some reports of 30. I haven't really tested this out, I generally top it up after using it. Hope this helps!