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HP Sprocket portable photo printer review

If you’re like me, you probably take a lot of pictures with your phone. Flipping through pics on our phones is fun, but most of us don’t get a chance to enjoy them OUTSIDE of the phone. One way to do that is to print the pictures and one solution that can help you with that task is the HP Sprocket portable photo printer. Let’s check it out.

What is it?

The HP Sprocket portable photo printer is a battery-powered printer that is about the size of a deck of cards and pairs with your phone and the HP Sprocket app to allow you to easily and quickly print your images on 2 x 3-inch sticky-backed paper without using ink.

What’s in the box?

HP Sprocket printer
micro USB cable
10 pack of HP ZINK sticky backed photo sheets

Design and features

The HP Sprocket printer is available in several colors, but I was sent the white version of the printer which has bronze colored accents.

The small printer has a plastic case with one button on the side which toggles power.

On the back of the printer is what looks like a lanyard attachement point… weird. You’ll also find the micro USB port for charging, two status LEDs, and a reset switch/hole.

The front edge of the Sprocket is where the printed photo is ejected.

The top of the printer slides off to reveal the compartment where you place the photo paper.

The photo paper is packaged in 10 sheet packs and probably has some sort of coding that won’t allow you to use other types of ZINK paper that are marketed for other brands of printers like the Sprocket.

I’ve reviewed a couple other printers that also use this type of paper and they all include a special blue card that has to be left in the stack of paper face down when you install the paper into the printer.

Here we see the stack of 10 sheets of ZINK paper placed in the Sprocket printer.

A spring-loaded pressure lever keeps the paper in place so that it doesn’t jam up inside of the printer during the printing process. I’ve had this problem with another older printer that I reviewed years ago, so I like to see that HP has designed a solution for this potential problem.

HP Sprocket app




To print your pictures, you need to install the HP Sprocket app on your phone. This app will let you view, edit, and print the images in your phone’s memory, on your Instagram account, Facebook account, and Google Photos account.

The app also lets you do some rudimentary editing like cropping, adjusting levels, adding text, and stickers.

Printing is quick and easy and since the HP Sprocket uses ZINK photo paper, you don’t have to worry about ink drying, smearing your smudging. The prints are ready to use and pass around as soon as the print ejects from the Sprocket.

My favorite thing about the prints is that they are peel and stick. I usually have problems peeling the other ZINK photo paper that I’ve used with my other photo printers, but the paper backing on the HP ZINK paper is noticeably easier to separate. I like to use the prints to embellish the entries in my journal.

What I like

  • Easy setup
  • Quick photo prints
  • Crisp and good color

What needs to be improved

  • Only comes with 10 sheets of photo paper

Final thoughts

I’ve reviewed a couple other printers very similar to the HP Sprocket, so I wasn’t expecting the resulting prints to be much if any different than ones I’ve been using for years. But I actually was surprised. The prints from the HP Sprocket look a bit crisper and have more vibrant colors than prints from Polaroid and Panasonic ZINK printers which have always looked a bit washed out to me. The HP Sprocket app is a bit more polished as well compared to the other printer apps. If I was in the market for a pocket-sized photo printer today, my first choice would be the HP Sprocket portable photo printer. It’s a keeper.

Price: $129.99
Where to buy: HP and Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by HP.

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HP Sprocket portable photo printer review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 16, 2018 at 12:00 pm.

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Epson Expression Premium XP-6000 All-In-One Printer review

I remember watching the original Star Trek series on TV as a lad. Every time someone wanted to look at some kind of media, it was always presented on a tablet-looking device. We’re not there yet, but until we get there, a good printer, like Epson’s XP-6000 fills the void nicely

What is it?

Epson’s Expression Premium All-In-One XP-6000 printer is a wireless computer printer, with fax, scanning, photo printing, and dual-sided capabilities. Multiple paper trays allow borderless 4” X 6” and 8-1/2” X 11” printing.

Hardware Specs

• Printing Method:  Epson Micro Piezo™ print head

• Nozzle Configuration: 360 Nozzles Black, 180 Nozzles per Color

• Minimum Droplet Size: 1.5 Pl, With Variable-Sized Droplet Technology

• Ink Technology:  Claria™ Premium Ink

• Printing Resolution: 5,760 x 1,440 DPI

• Application: Home, Photo

• All-in-One Functions:  Print, Scan, Copy

• Printing Speed ISO/IEC 24734:  15.8 pages/min Monochrome, 11.3 pages/min Color

• Printing Speed:         32 pages/min Monochrome (plain paper 75 g/m²), 32 pages/min Color (plain paper 75 g/m²),15 Seconds per 10 x 15 cm photo (Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper)

• Colors: Black, Photo Black, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta

• Scanning Resolution: 1,200 DPI x 4,800 DPI (Horizontal x Vertical)

• Scanner type:  Contact image sensor (CIS)

• Number of paper trays: 2

• Paper Formats: A4, A5, A6, B5, No. 10 (Envelope), Letter, 10 x 15 cm, 13 x 18 cm, 16:9, Legal, 9 x 13 cm, 13 x 20 cm, 20 x 25 cm, DL (Envelope), C6 (Envelope)

• Duplex: Yes (A4, plain paper)

• Print Margin: 0 mm top, 0 mm right, 0 mm bottom, 0 mm left (Wherever margin is defined. Otherwise 3mm top, left, right, bottom.)

• Multifunction: 100 Sheets Standard, 20 Photo Sheets

• Media Handling: Automatic duplex (A4, plain paper), Borderless print, CD/DVD print

• Energy Use: 18 Watt (standalone copying, ISO/IEC 24712 pattern), 0.7 Watt (sleep mode), 6 Watt (ready), 0.2 Watt (Power off), ENERGY STAR® qualified

• Supply Voltage: AC 220 V – 240 V

• Product dimensions: 349‎ x 340 x 142 mm (Width x Depth x Height)

• Product weight: 6.6 kg

• Noise Level: 4.6 B (A) with Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper / Photo RPM mode – 33 dB (A) with Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper / Photo RPM mode

• Compatible Operating Systems: Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP3, XP Professional x64 Edition SP2

• Included Software: Epson Easy Photo Print, Epson Print CD

• Interfaces: WiFi, USB, Wi-Fi Direct, USB host

• WLAN Security: WEP 64 Bit, WEP 128 Bit, WPA PSK (TKIP), WPA PSK (AES)

• Mobile and Cloud printing services: Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Epson Connect (iPrint, Email Print, Remote Print Driver, Scan-to-Cloud, Facebook print)

• Housing Color: Black

• LCD screen: Color, Diagonal: 6.1 cm

• Memory Cards: SD, SDHC, SDXC, MicroSD*, MicroSDHC*, MicroSDXC*, MiniSD*, MiniSDHC* (* Adaptor required, not included)

• Features: Red-eye removal, Photo Enhance, Direct print from USB, Wireless PictBridge

• Warranty: 12 months Carry-in

What’s in the Box?

  • Individual Ink Cartridges
  • Printer
  • Power Cable
  • Setup Guide
  • Software CD
  • Warranty Card

Design and features

Epson has been a household name in printing for many years. In fact, my first color printer was an Epson some 20 years ago.

The XP-6000 printer arrived in a full-color, well-padded box with hand grips in the sides –always helpful for the bulky gadgets. Epson was gracious in including several types of paper for this review.

I removed what seemed like dozens of blue tape tabs to secure the printer during transport, unwrapped and installed the ink cartridges and plugged in the printer for its maiden voyage.

The printer starts with a number of print quality and head alignment tests which took about 10 minutes.

Several pages were printed which asked me to provide answers to my preferred printed squares, blocks, and colors. Connecting the printer to WiFi was a bit cumbersome scrolling through alpha-numeric screens using the keypad cursors and “ok” button.

The printer is very “boxy” with not very many protrusions in its resting state. I like this clean unencumbered design.

To start printing, the front of the printer must be opened and the collection tray extended. This might pose a problem if someone sent data to the printer, but didn’t make sure the collection tray was not extended. With the tray closed, the printer is very compact and quite sexy (can I use “sexy” to describe a printer?)

I loaded plain paper and 4 X 6 photo paper and selected a few images from my iPhone. The printer isn’t a speed demon, but the output was sharp and clear, I was particularly impressed with the subtlety in the greys in the photo of my daughter’s pet bunny.

A few more printed 4 X 6 and 8 X10 photos were proof enough for me that the printer is very capable. Like all inkjet printers, ink can be expensive and has a limited shelf life. Inks for the XP-6000 are comparably priced with others on the market. It’s worth noting this printer has four colors, black, cyan, magenta, yellow and photo black that can be purchased in multi-packs.

Next, I chose a two-sided color text document on plain paper. Output was quick and quiet, with only short delays between pages.

I installed the included software on my computer to gain access to the scanning and CD printing capabilities and found the software to be intuitive and easy to use. There are separate apps for CD Printing, scanning and a very comprehensive user guide.

The printer also boasts direct-to-disk printing for CD/DVD/Blu-ray an SD card slot (micro SD cards will need an adapter that isn’t included) and a USB port.

The CD print tray is cleverly housed under the 8-1/2 X 11 tray. The CD printing app works well with lots of options. I’m big on home video so I might have to re-burn all my discs to give them a more polished look.

Computer-free printing is as simple, pop in a USB or SD card, and work through the menus – select the photos, number of prints, finish quality and, poof – done, just don’t forget to extend the output tray.

What I like

  • Attractive styling and compact size
  • Plenty of print options
  • CD printing and tray included
  • Great performance
  • Reasonably priced

What needs to be improved?

  • The ink alignment and head cleaning process can take a while and uses precious ink.

Final thoughts

Epson’s XP-6000 All-In-One printer is solid, offering a great design, CD, two photo sizes and plain paper printing. The apps are well designed and easy to use. Since this printer lacks a document feeder, it’s more geared towards the casual user. The pull-out trays are a bit quirky to get accustomed to, but not onerous. Overall, I really liked the XP-6000 and give it a solid recommendation. It’s not Star Trek yet, but with a snazzy printer like this, I can wait.

Price: $89.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Epson.

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Epson Expression Premium XP-6000 All-In-One Printer review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 19, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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The Canon IVY Mini Photo Printer – print your photos where you want and when you want


For those of us that like to be able to print photos on the go, there are a few options available to do just that task. A couple of days ago, I read about the Canon IVY Mini Photo Printer. It is primarily geared towards printing on the go from your Smartphone or tablet. It is very small and compact, and can easily fit in your pocket. Utilizing the Canon IVY Mini Photo Printer app, you can connect to it via Bluetooth and print 2” x 3” photos anywhere, and anytime, right from your phone. The paper for this printer has a peel and stick back.

The printer uses ZINK (Zero Ink) printing technology which prints using colorful dye-based crystals embedded within the paper. This is great since there is no ink to buy, nor does it suffer from ink drying up like inkjet printers. When printing, the printer uses heat to activate and colorize the crystals, and prints in a resolution up to 314 x 400 dpi. It has a paper tray capacity of 10 sheets.

The Canon IVY Mini Photo Printer is compatible with IOS 9.0 or later and Android 4.4 or later. You can purchase one at Amazon or B&H Photo Video for $129.

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The Canon IVY Mini Photo Printer – print your photos where you want and when you want originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 22, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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The Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo Printer prints your selfies in a flash

Since the early years when my interest in photography was peaking, I always wanted to take great photos and be able to produce a hardcopy very quickly to display my work, without having to go through a time-consuming process. I have been looking at photo printers for a very long time, but I never seemed to find one that was cost effective with a small footprint, that produced pictures that were very close to being 100% true to color. While I still have not found the complete solution, I did find a great little Photo printer that is compact and very versatile, reliable, and very cost effective. I purchased the Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo printer, and I have been pleasantly surprised at its ability, and efficiency. It was also very easy to setup.

This little gem of a printer prints photos from 2.1” x 2.1” to 4” x 6”. In addition to the standard 4” x 6”, it prints those passport and application photos that most of us usually go running to a photo store or drug store to print. It connects via USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi and can even go with you on the road because it can be battery powered. It has a very nice 3.2” tilting LCD screen and uses Apple AirPrint or the Canon Print Mobile App for printing. Since its printing technology is dye Sublimation and thermal transfer, I have never had the ink dry out over time. It is capable of borderless printing, brightness correction, color adjustment, photo cropping, image optimization, red-eye correction and several other tasks. It comes with a sample pack of photo paper and ink, and if you purchase a replacement combination pack of 108 4”x 6” sheets of photo paper and ink, the entire set is available for under $30 at B&H Photo Video.

If you would like to give the Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo Printer a try, you can purchase one at B&H Photo Video and Amazon for $109.97.

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The Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo Printer prints your selfies in a flash originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 10, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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KODAK Photo Printer Mini review

Back in the day, the only way you could see a picture that you had taken with your camera, was to have the film processed and prints made. Today, most images that we take are passed around digitally via email, and social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Is there still a place in this digital world for physical prints? KODAK sure hopes so and have created the Photo Printer Mini to get the job done fast and easy. Let’s see how well they’ve done.

What is it?

The KODAK Photo Printer Mini is a portable wireless color photo printer for Android and iOS devices that uses a WiFi connection instead of a Bluetooth connection.

Design and features

The Photo Printer Mini is about the same size as a large backup battery at 6 x 3 x 1 inch. Included in the box is an all-in-one print cartridge and a micro USB charging cable. The printer is available in white, black, and gold. As you can see, I was sent the white version.

There are 2 status LEDs on the top of the printer. One status LED is for power and printing, and the other one is a battery status LED.

On one side of the KODAK Photo Printer Mini, you’ll find a power button.

The micro USB charging port is located on one end of the printer along with a reset switch.

On the opposite end, you’ll find the print eject slot.

And on the other side is the print cartridge door.

The door opens to provide access to the all-in-one print cartridge. The cartridges combine paper and ribbon in one package and come in 20, 30 or 50 prints per cartridge.

The cartridges are easy to insert and remove.

An 8-print cartridge is included with the Photo Printer Mini. This is the only consumable that you need to worry about with this printer. I think KODAK cheaped out by only giving you a cartridge with 8 prints instead of a 20-print cartridge. You can find refills on Amazon where the price ranges from $19.99 each for the 20-print cartridge, up to $35.73 for the 50-print cartridge. The 20-print cartridge is also available with sticky backed prints so you can use them as stickers.

The app


Before you can print your first picture, you’ll need to install the app on an iOS or Android device. I did my testing with a Google Pixel 2 XL. This printer uses a WiFi connection instead of Bluetooth, so you will have set up the WiFi connection including the password.

If you have an Android smartphone, you can also tap the phone on top of the printer to quickly launch the app. But I still had to manually connect the printer to my phone each time by going into the WiFi network list.

If you look at the two images above, you can see that the app is trying to connect to the printer. I saw this message quite often and found the connection between my phone and the printer to be very fiddly.

Once connected, you can access photos from your phone’s camera roll, Facebook, Instagram and a couple other social media platforms, Google images, or even screen grabs from your videos.


The KODAK Printer app has some built-in editing features that allow you to crop, rotate, add frames, stickers, and do other rudimentary adjustments to the image before printing.

After you have chosen and edited the image, all that is left to do is print it. Printing is relatively quick and the print is dry and ready to handle immediately after printing is finished.

See it in action

As you can see, the print time is pretty quick.

The credit card sized 2.1 x 3.4 inch (54 x 86 mm) photos are printed in seconds and dry instantly.

I don’t quite understand the purpose of the small perforated tab that tears off the image though. It leaves one side of the print with a fine serration.

I’ve reviewed other wireless printers over the years like the Polaroid ZIP which use dye-incorporating paper (ZINK) and I find the KODAK Photo Printer Mini’s image quality to be superior in sharpness and color. That’s because the KODAK printer uses dye sublimation thermal transfer with 256 gradations and 16.7 million colors. It also puts a laminated protection layer over the print that is fingerprint and water resistant.

What I like

  • Sharper and more colorful prints compared to other small printers that use ZINK paper
  • Quick and easy to use when the WiFi connection is behaving
  • Fingerprint and water resistant prints

What needs to be improved

  • WiFi connection is too fiddly
  • Only comes with an 8-print cartridge

Final thoughts

Except for the problems that I had with the WiFi connection dropping between the printer and my phone, I would say that this is the easiest portable wireless printer to use and prints the best-looking prints. As long as you remember that you’ll need to buy extra printer cartridges, the KODAK Photo Printer Mini will let you have fun bringing your favorite digital prints into the physical world.

Price: $99.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by KODAK.