One part retro, one part modern, and thoroughly fun to use, the Fujifilm Instax Share SP-1 ($199) is a surprisingly capable portable photo printer. It uses instant film to produce photos, and offers Wi-Fi Direct for printing from your smartphone or tablet. If you want an easy way to print credit-card-size photos from your Android or iOS phone or tablet, the SP-1($99.97 at Amazon) should be on your short list.

There are plenty of portable photo printers available, including inkjets like the Editors' Choice Epson PictureMate Charm($299.99 at Amazon). However, the Epson PictureMate Charm prints at 4 by 6 inches, and it's nearly the size of a lunch box, making it big and heavy for a portable printer. Much closer in spirit to the SP-1 would be photo printers that use Zink technology, like the Polaroid Grey Label GL10 Instant Mobile Printer or the Pandigital Portable Photo Printer. The Zink photo paper, like film, doesn't need a separate ink source. Instead, it uses heat to activate the dye crystals embedded in the paper and create images.

Not needing a separate supply of ink means you don't have to worry about running out of ink and don't have to load cartridges, as with an inkjet. It also lets manufacturers build a smaller printer for any given size of photo paper than you would need for an inkjet, since they don't need to make room for a printhead and ink cartridges.

The SP-1 takes an even bigger step away from ink by using actual film instead of a digital printing technology. More precisely, it uses the same cartridges of Instax Mini instant film as Fujifilm Instax instant cameras. To print digital photos from your phone on the analog film, the camera uses red, green, and blue LEDs, along with a liquid crystal shutter to expose the film inside the printer, based on the red, green, and blue pixels in the digital photo. It then ejects the film, and you can watch the image develop over the next several minutes.

Basics and Setup

The SP-1 weighs a little more than 11 ounces, complete with batteries and film installed, and it measures just 1.7 by 4.0 by 4.8 inches (HWD). It looks more like a  gadget than most printers, with a rounded front and sides, and the top and bottom reflects light with an attractive specked effect.

One of the SP-1's strongest points is how easy it is to set up and use. Simply install the batteries, snap in a film cartridge, and you're ready to print. Note that Fujifilm supplies two 3-volt lithium batteries with the printer, but you have to buy the film separately.

A particularly welcome touch, the SP-1 offers a generous array of 13 easy-to-understand status lights instead of two or three lights that flash in variations that you need a decoder ring to comprehend. Three LEDs on the front show the power level for the batteries. Ten more show how much film is left in the currently installed photo pack. Each cartridge is limited to ten prints, with the number of lit LEDs telling you how many are still left in the printer. The only control on the printer besides the Power button is a Reprint button, which lets you print additional copies of a photo without having to resend it from your phone.

Printing

After setup, the only additional step before you can print is to download the Instax Share app to your Android or iOS device. For my tests, I used a Samsung Galaxy S III, but according to Fujifilm, the iOS app offers essentially the same features.

Once you've downloaded Instax Share, you can use it to call up your phone or tablet's Camera app to take pictures, as well as choose pictures to print from your phone's gallery, Facebook, or Instagram. The Instax Share app offers some simple editing features, including the ability to rotate the image before printing, set the image to print in sepia or black and white instead of color, and add a template frame, which will let you add text, the current date, or other information.

Thanks to Wi-Fi Direct, the printer functions as its own access point, so you can connect directly to it with your phone. The first time you print, you have to enter the SP-1 password The app will remember it going forward. There's also an option in the app for changing the password in the printer, if you want something harder to guess than the default "1111."

Print Speed, Output Quality, Photo Size, and Cost

Print speed in my tests varied from roughly 18 to 28 seconds, depending on whether the phone was already connected to the printer or first had to find it and make the connection. Using the Reprint button took just 16.5 seconds to print.

Photos comes out of the front slot with no image showing. The image begins to appear within a minute, just like a Polaroid photo, and continues developing for the next several minutes, with colors slowly becoming more saturated. Comparing two photos printed several minutes apart, I could still see a difference five minutes after printing the second photo, but the process seemed nearly finished by then.

There's not much to say about image quality, except that it's indistinguishable from photos taken with an analog instant camera that uses the same film. That makes it noticeably higher quality than photos printed with the Zink-based printers we've seen. On the plus side, the SP-1's photos are just as rugged as Zink photos. They're almost impossible to tear, and they're scratch- and water-resistant.

The photos are small, which is a little limiting. They measure roughly 2 by 3.5 inches, but with large white borders. The images themselves are just 1.75 by 2.47 inches. They're also expensive. Fujifilm says the film typically sells for $15 to $20 for a two-cartridge pack, which works out to $0.75 to $1.00 per photo. That's significantly more per photo than with the Polaroid GL10, the Pandigital Portable Photo Printer, or the our Editors' Choice photo printer, the Epson PictureMate Charm. 

That said, if a credit-card-size photo is appropriate for your needs, and you don't mind the cost per photo, the Fujifilm Instax Share SP-1 is a good choice. You can bring it with you anywhere, take pictures with your smartphone or tablet, and hand out copies on the spot at a rate of one print every 20 seconds or so. It's easy and fun to use, and it makes a terrific smartphone accessory.

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