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We think the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link is the best instant printer, the Fujifilm Instax Link Wide is best for slightly larger photos, or the Canon Selphy CP1300 for 4x6 prints like you get from CVS or Walgreens.
Want to print small photos without a clunky, bulky machine? Consider an instant photo printer. The Fujifilm Instax Mini Link is easy to use and creates rich, colorful images that at 3.4 by 2.1 inches (including a white border) are small enough to fit in a wallet or purse. Although the output from instant photo printers can’t rival the quality and resolution of images printed on a dedicated photo printer, these printers still produce nice-looking photos—and they’re small and light enough to come with you to a party or a picnic.
Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Link prints film-like, credit-card-sized images that are vibrant and fun. The printer is about the size of a small hard drive, so you can take it with you just about anywhere.
Buying Instax Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The images we printed with the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link were not the sharpest or the most color accurate among the printers we tested, but the film-like aesthetic of the prints made the Mini Link a favorite of our test panel—and prints from portable printers all come with their own set of quirks, anyway. The Mini Link’s prints were the most consistent from one to the next, and the mobile app was easy to set up and use. Because the Mini Link is one of the smallest and lightest printers we tested—at 3.5 by 4.9 by 1.3 inches (WDH) and at 7.3 ounces without film or 8.6 ounces with a new film pack—it’s easy to toss in a purse or backpack for hangouts or events. The cost of its 3.4-by-2.1-inch prints (with a 2.5-by-2-inch image area and a white border) works out to around 70¢ each.
The Link Wide produces the same bold and beautiful look that the Mini Link does but on film about twice the width. Though the printer itself is a tad larger, it’s still small enough to tote around.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $140.
Fujifilm’s twin packs typically give you the best price on Instax Wide film.
The Fujifilm Instax Link Wide delivers the same film-like image quality as the Mini Link does but in a slightly larger, horizontal format that more closely resembles classic Polaroids. The Link Wide prints 3.4-by-4.3-inch photographs with a 2.4-by-3.9-inch image area and a white border. Those images cost about 95¢ each and are great for landscapes and group shots. The printer itself measures 5.6 by 5 by 1.3 inches (WDH) and weighs 14 ounces with film. It’s a bit larger than the Mini Link, but it’s still quite portable.
The Selphy CP1300 produces larger, 4-by-6-inch images with surprisingly good color and sharpness for a portable printer.
Canon’s refill bundle has enough ink and paper for 108 prints.
The Canon Selphy CP1300 produced the largest, sharpest, most color-accurate prints of any portable photo printer we tested. It prints on 4-by-6-inch glossy paper and, unlike Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Link and Link Wide, lets you print directly from an SD card or from a computer via USB in addition to Wi-Fi, using the Canon Print app (iOS and Android). The printer measures 7.1 by 12.4 by 2.5 inches (WDH) with its paper tray and weighs 2.4 pounds, so it isn’t as portable as our other picks. But you can separate the paper tray (which adds 7 inches to the depth of the printer when attached), and Canon offers an optional, rechargeable battery, making it easier to tote. Canon’s Selphy supply packs aren’t as widely available as Fujifilm’s Instax film but include enough ribbon and paper for 108 prints for about $30 (at this writing) or 27¢ each—43¢ less than prints from our top pick.
Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Link prints film-like, credit-card-sized images that are vibrant and fun. The printer is about the size of a small hard drive, so you can take it with you just about anywhere.
Buying Instax Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The Link Wide produces the same bold and beautiful look that the Mini Link does but on film about twice the width. Though the printer itself is a tad larger, it’s still small enough to tote around.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $140.
Fujifilm’s twin packs typically give you the best price on Instax Wide film.
The Selphy CP1300 produces larger, 4-by-6-inch images with surprisingly good color and sharpness for a portable printer.
Canon’s refill bundle has enough ink and paper for 108 prints.
I’m an updates writer for Wirecutter and a photographer in my spare time. My photography ranges from studio portraits to product and street photography. For Wirecutter, I’ve worked on several camera-related guides, including our guides to the best instant camera, the best tripod, and the best cell phone tripod.
Anyone who wants to create on-the-spot physical copies of photos shot with any digital camera or phone can benefit from an instant printer. You can use one to print favorite images for posting on your fridge or at your desk, for instance. But these easily portable printers are especially well suited for social gatherings—we’ve seen instant printers become instant hits at everything from big, fancy weddings to casual hangouts with friends. Trust us: Printing actual physical photos might sound like an anachronism, but people tend to love walking away from a party with printed evidence of the fun they just had in their pocket or purse, not buried in their phone’s sea of digital photos.
Instant photo printers, or portable photo printers, connect to your cell phone or tablet over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and, through a companion app, allow you to print any photo stored on your device. Canon’s Selphy CP1300, our also-great pick, can connect to a computer through USB, too, but that’s atypical of this category. These printers are typically about the same size as an external hard drive and use print technology that differs from what you can find on a document or photo printer.
You’ll encounter a few kinds of instant-print technology:
Creating a great “instant” photo takes a little longer than the name implies. Fujifilm’s Instax prints were actually the slowest in our tests when we included the time the photos took to develop. Zink prints were the fastest, averaging about a minute from the moment we hit the Send button to when the print was finished. Dye-sublimation prints took closer to two minutes on average. Although Instax prints finished last in our speed test, taking an average of four to six minutes to fully develop, we think they’re worth the wait.
There’s also the look and feel of the photo to consider. In our panel testing, people preferred the creamy look of an Instax print over other images with more color accuracy or higher detail. Sarah Kobos, a professional photo editor, said, “Instant photos have a blurred, contrasty quality. They’re not as sharp or show the details as well. It’s not that they’re not high quality, but they have an aesthetic. Do you want the photo to look like film, or do you want the best-looking photo overall?”
Using the criteria for our instant camera guide as a foundation, we looked for instant photo printers that fit the following criteria:
For testing, we printed the same set of five images on each printer. Among the images was a linear resolution test chart to give us a sense of how well the printers handled detail, a color chart to tell us how colors reproduced differently on each printer, and a group shot of people to gauge how well each printer handled various skin tones. Along the way we noted how long the images took to print, starting the timer from the moment we hit the Send button in the app until the paper came out of the printer. (Spoiler: Most of the printers took about the same amount of time.) Because Fujifilm’s Instax film needs to develop, we timed how long each exposure took before it was fully finished. We also noted any glitches or difficulties we experienced, such as apps randomly closing or taking a long time to connect to the printer. Finally, we presented two sets of photos—with the edges covered so that only the image area was visible—to a test panel of six Wirecutter staff members and asked them to determine which images looked the best.
In our tests we found a few common threads among the various print technologies. Zink prints, regardless of the device, were just not good. Zink printers consistently produced images with too much contrast—even slightly dark areas went straight to black, and detail was lost. Colors almost always skewed too warm, to the point that skin tones looked orange. Dye-sublimation printers produced much better results but with their own set of flaws. Colors from dye-sub printers looked more neutral, and the level of detail was impressive, but most of these printers produced lines running across the image that weren’t in the source images (what printing experts call banding). Some printers suffered from this effect more than others, and all of the smaller dye-sub printers (those that made images around 2 by 4 inches) were the worst. Instax prints fell pleasingly in the middle quality-wise. Though they were not as sharp or accurate-looking as the results from dye-sub printers, they didn’t suffer from banding, either, instead exhibiting the smooth look of film. Overall, colors in Instax prints were nicely saturated and did not become over- or underexposed as we saw in Zink prints.
Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Link prints film-like, credit-card-sized images that are vibrant and fun. The printer is about the size of a small hard drive, so you can take it with you just about anywhere.
Buying Instax Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The Fujifilm Instax Mini Link is a fun-to-use, ultra-portable photo printer that consistently delivers beautiful images. Of all the printers we tested, the Mini Link was the easiest to set up and use; we went from unboxing to printing in under five minutes. The Mini Link app is intuitive and runs smoothly on both iOS and Android. The printer uses the same film packs as Fujifilm’s Instax cameras do, and refills are easy to find. And in our tests, small images we printed with the Mini Link were colorful and creamy.
The prints are a little smaller than a credit card, measuring 3.4 by 2.1 inches (with borders). The printer itself isn’t much bigger at only 3.5 by 4.9 by 1.3 inches (WDH), and it weighs just 8 ounces with film. It can fit in a small purse or even a large back pocket. Prints eject almost immediately after you tap the Print button in the app, and then they take an average of four to six minutes to fully develop.
Of all the printers we tested, the Mini Link was the easiest to set up and use; we went from unboxing to printing in under five minutes.
Overall, the Mini Link’s pictures tended to be slightly darker and less sharp than test images we made with other printers (except for images we printed with Zink models, which were unflatteringly dark and contrasty) but still pleasing to look at. In our brand-concealed panel test, some of our testers were able to guess which images had come from an Instax printer despite their not being able to see the photos’ iconic white border. “I think this image is the best because even though it’s a little darker, it has a pleasant film-looking quality to it. It looks even, no one’s skin looks weird, and overall it’s a better image. It looks like a Polaroid image,” said updates writer Sri Rain Stewart.
As the name suggests, the Mini Link is small. It’s one of the smallest printers we tested—about the size of a portable hard drive—and it has only one large button, which you use to turn the printer on and off. Aside from that button, it has a small door on the side that covers a USB port for charging. There’s no screen, but an LED light surrounding the on/off button changes colors and indicates the status of the printer (PDF). For example, the LED is solid white while the printer is connected to the app in Print Mode, and it flashes rainbow colors while the app is transferring an image and the unit is printing. The printer gives you no way to tell how many prints are left in the cartridge, nor does it show the battery level. If you want those details, you have to connect the printer to the Mini Link app, where that information appears at the top of the screen. The Mini Link comes in white, dark blue, and pink.
Prints from the Mini Link come out just as colorful and creamy as if you’d taken them with an Instax camera. If you have an Instax camera that accepts Mini film, the same supplies can fuel both the camera and printer, which is a nice convenience (although you can’t move a partially used film pack from an Instax camera to an Instax printer because light exposure would ruin the unused prints). A twin pack costs about $14 (at this writing), so each exposure costs about 70¢. Unlike with some of the other instant-film brands we tested, getting replacement packs of Fujifilm’s Instax film is easy since they’re sold just about everywhere.
The Instax Mini Link app (iPhone and Android) is easy to use and connects quickly to the printer. Within the app you can make changes to your images before printing: Print Mode gives you options for cropping or adding filters (such as turning the image black-and-white), and Correction Mode lets you edit the brightness, saturation, and contrast. In Fun Mode you can add frames and effects (like adding stickers on top of your picture). The printer also has a motion sensor that detects its orientation: When the printer is connected to the app and standing up, the app displays in Print Mode, whereas if you lay the printer down the app switches to Fun Mode. The in-app shift is just an animation, and you can still access all the features from either mode. If you open your camera from within the app, you can tilt the Mini Link printer backward or forward, and it will control the camera and zoom in or out. The internal motion sensors worked fine during our testing, but the tilt function didn’t add any real value to the printer and just seemed a bit gimmicky.
Although our panelists widely loved the film-like look of the Instax Mini Link’s prints, the final images do lose a lot of detail and clarity. This isn’t the printer to get if you value color accuracy over aesthetics. In addition, the body of the printer is made of thin-feeling plastic, which helps keep the printer light but also seems a bit cheap and doesn’t instill confidence that the printer would survive a drop.
The Link Wide produces the same bold and beautiful look that the Mini Link does but on film about twice the width. Though the printer itself is a tad larger, it’s still small enough to tote around.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $140.
Fujifilm’s twin packs typically give you the best price on Instax Wide film.
If you love the look and feel of film-like Instax photos but want double the print size (landscapes, anyone?), the Fujifilm Instax Link Wide is the way to go. Like the Mini Link, the Link Wide is easy to use, and the app works great on iOS and Android, but this model offers fewer features. The prints from the Link Wide are vibrant and a little more than twice the width of the Mini Link’s prints, measuring 3.4 by 4.3 inches (including the classic white border).
The Link Wide has its own mobile app (iOS and Android), which is a more pared-down experience compared with the Mini Link app. It includes a Simple Print function for printing images from your phone, as well as a collage feature that lets you add up to 16 images to one print, but it offers none of the social features found in the Fun Mode of the Mini Link app.
The pictures we printed with the Link Wide looked every bit as creamy and colorful as the ones we got from the Mini Link, but as with the Mini Link, they weren’t as sharp or accurate-looking as prints from the Canon Selphy CP1300 (though those prints didn’t evince the same aesthetic). Prints from the Link Wide are about 4.3 inches wide (including the border), roughly 2 inches wider than those from the Mini Link. The horizontal aspect ratio works great for landscapes or group portraits. For those who participated in our test panel, the prints from the Link Wide were a clear favorite. “[The Instax Link Wide] looks the best. It’s creamy and lovely, and nothing is blown out,” said professional photo editor Sarah Kobos.
“The soft glow quality [the Instax Link Wide] printer gave the photo makes it more pleasant to look at. The colors, while a little oversaturated, are more flattering, too,” said Caira Blackwell, Wirecutter staff writer. The film packs cost a bit more than the Mini packs—about $19 for 20 exposures. That works out to 95¢ per exposure (at this writing).
The Instax Link Wide printer shares much of the look and feel of the Mini Link, including a lightweight casing and a central on/off button that lights up and changes color. Unlike the Mini Link, which can stand on its own thanks to a flat bottom, the Link Wide comes with a U-shaped stand. Aside from that, the two models are basically the same printer, except that the Mini Link is roughly 3.5 inches wide, and the Link Wide is about 5.6 inches wide.
Similar to what we saw from the Mini Link, images we printed on the Link Wide were darker and less detailed than prints from dye-sub printers, and we’re not sure how well the printer would survive a fall. Though the Link Wide can stand on its own, it’s not as stable as the Mini Link, so you should definitely keep the included U-shaped stand handy if you plan to leave it standing. The Link Wide uses the same supplies as the Fujifilm Instax Wide 300 camera, which we recommend in our instant cameras guide, so they make a convenient pair if you want to have both.
The Selphy CP1300 produces larger, 4-by-6-inch images with surprisingly good color and sharpness for a portable printer.
Canon’s refill bundle has enough ink and paper for 108 prints.
Contrary to the small film-like images you get from our Fujifilm Instax picks, the Canon Selphy CP1300 produces sharper prints with more accurate-looking colors on larger, 4-by-6-inch borderless glossy paper (similar to prints you’d get from a Walgreens or Costco). The printer also offers a wide range of ways to print, including directly from an SD card. Although the Selphy CP1300 is still portable, it’s significantly heavier than the Instax Mini Link, weighing 2.4 pounds (3.1 pounds with the charging cable). It costs more than our top pick up front but produces better images and gives you more ways to print, and the cost per print is lower.
The Selphy CP1300 uses dye-sub printing technology, which passes the printer paper back and forth four times, adding three color layers before finally applying a protective coating. Although most of the other dye-sub printers we tested showed signs of banding in their output, the Selphy CP1300’s images came out stunning. Colors were rich without being oversaturated. The darkest and lightest areas of the photo looked natural, and the details were sharp and clear.
As opposed to the Fujifilm printers, which can print only through their companion app on either a phone or tablet, the Selphy CP1300 offers a variety of ways to connect and print. It has both USB-A and Mini-USB ports to connect directly to a computer, and it has an SD card slot to print from a memory card. If you want to connect it wirelessly, you can do so with the Selphy app, either through an ad hoc Wi-Fi connection (in which you connect directly to a Wi-Fi signal sent from the printer) or through your home router (after you set it up as a printer on your phone). We tested printing using all of these settings and didn’t encounter any problems; the printer connected consistently and never lost connection during a print the way some of the printers we ruled out did.
The Selphy CP1300 comes in two colors, black and white. The black version, which we tested, has a premium look. Most of the printer has a matte finish, and the buttons are glossy black and inlaid so that they lie mostly flush with the top of the printer, though the OK button is slightly raised to make it easier to find by touch. Unlike the Fujifilm printers, which don’t have a screen and require an app to operate, the Selphy CP1300 has a 3.2-inch screen that shows menu options and, when an SD card is inserted, low-res previews of the images on the card. The screen is not touch-sensitive, but the printer has plenty of buttons, so navigating around the menu doesn’t feel too tedious. On the front of the printer is a door that drops to reveal the SD card slot and the spot for the paper tray. You insert paper into the tray glossy side up and then connect the tray to the printer.
Canon offers replacement ink and paper packs that include enough supplies to make 108 prints for $30 (at this writing) or 27¢ per exposure. It comes with an AC power cable, and Canon sells an optional rechargeable battery, too. We didn’t test the printer with a battery, but Phil Ryan, Wirecutter’s editor of camera, printer, and scanner coverage, said that he has used previous models in the field with a rechargeable battery, and they worked perfectly fine. Canon claims that the rechargeable battery can last for about 54 prints per charge.
After selecting a photo in the app, you can rotate or crop it and adjust the saturation, contrast, and brightness. The Canon printing app gives you more control through color adjustments than the Fujifilm apps do, including the ability to change the color and size of the border and to apply a timestamp. If you want to print more than one photo, the app provides you with a few options including a Bookmark Layout (prints images in a skinny row along one side of the photo paper so you can cut it in half and use it as a bookmark), Shuffle Layout (prints a collection of images in a mosaic), and ID Photo (great for printing headshots for official documents such as passports). One nice bonus: The ID Photo option comes preloaded with the most common photo sizes, including passport dimensions, and offers guides to help you make sure the image is in the right place. Most of these options are also available within the printer if you choose to print off an SD card.
Though it’s nice to be able to access most of the app’s edit tools and effects within the printer, the menu system is a bit slow, and the printer takes a few seconds to respond to button commands. The screen on the top is good but not great. It’s impossible to tell which images are in critical focus when you’re looking through the images on an SD card. You can magnify images to check for focus, but hitting the magnification button incurs a wait of several seconds as the printer thinks about the image before presenting it, and you usually have to magnify the image at least three or four times to see important details clearly.
If you want slightly punchier colors: The Kodak Photo Printer Dock prints beautiful images, with more saturated colors than you can get from the Canon Selphy CP1300. The Kodak Dock was popular with our test panelists for its bright, attractive photos. The printer doesn’t feel as premium as our picks, though, and the only way to print images is by connecting a phone directly to the dock with a cable. Paper refills cost $30 for 80 exposures (at this writing), which works out to 37¢ per image (10¢ more per photo compared with the Canon).
The Canon Ivy, the HP Sprocket Select, and the Kodak Step all use Zink technology for their prints. We’ve dismissed cameras that produce Zink prints in our guide to instant cameras for the same reasons we’re dismissing these printers here: In our tests, the 2-by-3-inch prints came out low quality regardless of the device we used.
The dye-sub prints from the HP Sprocket Studio looked decent, without the banding issues we saw with smaller dye-sub printers, but the images lacked clarity and richness of color. Also, the dock is not removable, making the printer difficult to take on the go. It can print only via the companion app, and replacement paper is more expensive for fewer sheets.
The Canon Selphy QX10 consistently delivered beautiful, colorful images almost as good as those of our also-great pick, the CP1300, but in a smaller, square format. The QX10 comes in more colors (Canon offers pink and green versions in addition to the standard black and white models), but it’s $30 more expensive and can print only square images, which we found too limiting, compositionally speaking.
We were about to name the Kodak Mini 2 HD as our top pick because it had higher color accuracy and tied with the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link as our test panel’s favorite, but we subsequently noticed severe banding on images we printed after the printer had sat unused for a day or two. Plus, halfway through one of the cartridges, the printer issued an error message saying it didn’t recognize the cartridge. These issues drastically increase the cost of refills and reduce the reliability of the printer.
The Kodak Mini 3 Square employs the same 4-pass printing technology as the Kodak Mini 2 HD does, and we noticed similar banding issues on the first prints it generated after it had been sitting for a while. We don’t think the slight improvement in color accuracy is worth the extra cost of running a “warm-up” print any time the printer has been sitting longer than a day.
We didn’t test the Lifeprint Ultra Slim Printer because, although it also uses an app on a phone to print images, it focuses heavily on its social-platform element, making new owners sign up with their email addresses before they can print. This is too much commitment. Plus, the Lifeprint uses Zink technology, which we don’t love.
This article was edited by Phil Ryan and Erica Ogg.
Arriana Vasquez is an updates writer for powering, home office, cameras, and hobbies at Wirecutter. Her hobbies include reading and photography. Her photos have won several awards in various online competitions, and she is the producer and co-host of Old Books Podcast.
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