Best Portable Photo Printers (2022): Which Portable Photo Printers Are Worth Getting?

Back in the day, printing photos is a necessity if you want to be able to share photos with family and friends. Nowadays, with social media and all, printing photos is not really as widespread, but there are still a lot of ways to do so if you want. Having a portable photo printer is one of them. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best portable photo printers that you can buy if you want tangible proof of your most important memories with friends and family. Here is a list of our top picks from brands such as Polaroid, Fujifilm, Canon and Kodak.

Best Portable Photo Printers Comparison Chart

Polaroid Hi-Print

Best value portable photo printer.

The best feature of the Polaroid Hi-Print is its excellent print quality. It uses dye-sub for printing so it produces high quality images with vibrant colors. It’s compatible with Polaroid Hi-Print paper and the images are in a 2 x 3 inch format.

The companion app offers pretty standard editing features that include adding filters, text, frames and more. It connects to your smartphone (Android & iOS) via Bluetooth. Aside from images from your phone, the printer can also syncs with images from various social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instragam and more.

One downside with the Polaroid Hi-Print is that it’s not the fastest printer around. It takes around 50 seconds to print one photo due to it being a dye-sub printer. However, we think that this is not a major issue since the resulting photos are really good.

Fujifilm Instax Mini Link

A fast printer that can print up to 100 photos on a single charge.

One of the best features of the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link is its fast printing speed. It can print images in around 12 seconds and on a single charge, it can print around 100 images. You also get two types of printing with its Mini Link companion app. One is print mode, which is your standard printing mode and the other is fun mode, which offers some features such as “match test” and “party print.”

Measuring 3.5 x 4.9 x 1.3 inches, the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link is highly portable. It prints 2.4 x 1.8 inch images and with the app, you can add color filters, adjust saturation, contrast and more. The printer uses Instax Mini Film. The images that come out of the printer have vibrant colors and plenty of detail. Admittedly, though, they are not the best when it comes to overall quality.

Canon SELPHY QX10

A bit pricey, but prints high quality photos.

The Canon SELPHY QX10 is not the cheapest portable photo printer, but we included it in our list because it has high quality prints that can last a long time, provided that you store them in favorable conditions. It’s a bit bulky, measuring 4 x 5.65 x 1.23 inches, but it’s still compact enough for portability.

It prints images in 2.7 x 2.7, 2.6 x 2.6 and 2.4 x 2.4 inch formats and it uses Canon sticker paper with dye-sub technology. The Canon SELPHY QX10 prints photos fast and they have vibrant colors. Also, they have high quality, water-resistant coating so they can last a long time. You can use the printer with the SELPHY Photo Layout 2.0 app, and this app gives you several editing and customization features.

KODAK Step

Best budget portable photo printer.

Rounding out the list of our picks for the best portable photo printers is the Kodak Step photo printer. This photo printer is the cheapest and it is our pick for the best budget one. It’s a Zink printer that’s easy to use and it connects to your smartphone (iOS & Android) via Bluetooth. The Kodak Step Prints app gives you some basic photo editing features such as adding borders and more.

As it is a budget-oriented portable photo printer, there are some not-so-great things about it. First, it has a micro USB port, which is not that big of an issue, but it would have been better if it had a USB-C port instead. Also, its prints are not the highest quality. If you can deal with these shortcomings, the Kodak Step is a very good budget option.

Verdict

With so many portable photo printers available, there are many options for all types of users.

The Polaroid Hi-Print portable photo printer is our top choice simply because it offers the best quality photo prints. Another factor is its price—it’s not as costly as some of the other portable photo printers that produce equal photo quality. Its app also comes with the standard features that you’ll get with most portable photo printer companion apps such as basic editing and customization. Overall, it’s the best value pick.

The Fujifilm Instax Mini Link, Canon SELPHY QX10 and Kodak Step are also excellent portable photo printers for different users. If you want a fun and easy to use photo printer, the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link will be up your alley. The Canon SELPHY QX10 prints very high quality images and it’s quite versatile in that it prints images in three sizes. For budget users, the Kodak Step is a very good option. It doesn’t print the best quality photos, but for its price, the photos are more than acceptable.

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