Hp Sprocket 2-in-1 Photo Printer and Camera Review
Our Verdict
The HP Sprocket 2-in-1 is a portable photo printer with a camera built in, which is sure to be fun when snapping photos with friends, merely you'll get better pictures from competing photo printers.
For
- Photo printer and camera in one
- Inkless printing is hassle-free
- Rechargeable bombardment
Against
- Impress quality leaves a lot to exist desired
- Mediocre camera
- Clunky app
Tom's Guide Verdict
The HP Sprocket 2-in-one is a portable photo printer with a camera built in, which is certain to be fun when snapping photos with friends, but you'll get better pictures from competing photo printers.
Pros
- +
Photo printer and camera in one
- +
Inkless printing is hassle-gratuitous
- +
Rechargeable battery
Cons
- -
Print quality leaves a lot to be desired
- -
Mediocre camera
- -
Clunky app
Decades ago, the Polaroid Instant camera was an iconic piece of tech that was as pop for its day every bit the latest iPhone is now. It pioneered the employ of self-developing film, and it was a hit for decades. HP has introduced a new portable photo printer, the Sprocket 2-in-ane ($159.99), and it comes with a camera built right in. Is this the new instant camera? Maybe, but it could stand to meliorate its print quality.
Pattern
The Sprocket ii-in-i is modest, made to slip into a pocket or purse to take with you on the go and pull out on the spur of the moment. The 2-in-1 camera/printer's pattern is sleek and smooth, with a glossy white plastic exterior and copper-hued accents.
Measuring but four.8 ten 3.ane 10 1.fourteen inches, it'southward thicker than standalone photo printers similar the Polaroid Zip (4.7 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches) and the Fujifilm Instax SP-3 (five.1 ten 4.v ten 1.7 inches), but right in line with some other 2-in-one photographic camera/printer combo, the Polaroid Snap (4.eight x 3 x 1.i inches). The actress thickness comes from the addition of a built-in 5 megapixel camera, which lets y'all capture snapshots spontaneously and impress the photos correct away.
Along i border is the exit slot for printed photos, which likewise has an LED-lit strip that glows white when the printer is on. On the contrary edge of the Sprocket you'll observe a slider switch to ability the device on, a micro USB port for charging the internal battery and an anchor for a lanyard loop. HP includes a wrist strap for the Sprocket so that you can use it as a camera without take chances of dropping it.
On the bottom of the camera/printer is a tripod mount and a microSD bill of fare slot for saving digital copies of the photos yous snap with the Sprocket. Forth the superlative edge of the device are a shutter push, a timer button that gives y'all 10 seconds to bring together a group photo, and a flip-upwardly viewfinder.
The viewfinder is interesting for two reasons; first, it has a functional purpose, switching the device between stand-lonely photo press and camera use. It besides has a plastic window over the viewfinder that is slightly mirrored, giving you a tiny reflection for framing selfies. On the forepart face of the Sprocket is the lens, along with a tiny LED wink. On the back is a hatch used to load the printer's 2 x 3-inch Zink Paper.
App
The Sprocket 2-in-1 uses HP'south Sprocket app (available for Android and iOS) to manage and print photos. Using the app you tin print photos from your smartphone, just equally you lot would with the photographic camera-less version of the HP Sprocket. Made for simplicity and speedy printing, HP touts the app'due south "two tap" interaction, where printing a photo is equally simple equally borer the selected prototype from your photos and borer the impress icon.
Connecting to the printer is uncomplicated, with a straightforward Bluetooth connection instead of Wi-FI Direct or a cablevision. The app non only pulls from the photos saved to your camera roll, but likewise can print apps from Instagram, Facebook or Google.
Yous can also crop and edit photos in the app, or embellish pictures with SnapChat-style filters and stickers. The selection of stickers and other embellishments is updated regularly, providing seasonal options alongside pop items. When I tested the app and printer at the end of Oct, the app had all sorts of Halloween- and fall-themed borders, stickers and emojis. As far as the app'south core functionality is concerned, Sprocket is a solid win.
But peradventure the most interesting thing is the app'south "embedded memories" feature. Once a photo has been printed, you can scan it with your smartphone's camera, much like you would a QR code. In the Sprocket app, you will then exist able to pull up your other photos and videos from the same location and fourth dimension, run into a Google Street view photosphere of the photograph location, and fifty-fifty pull up relevant Wikipedia articles, a handy tool for providing context to pictures taken at tourist hotspots or other pop places.
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You lot can too view video clips from a unmarried printed frame of the video, with an AR layer within the app that plays dorsum the video within the border of the printed photograph. When I tested it with a prune of my son taking some of his get-go steps, it permit me view the video like a living photograph. Just the tool itself was finicky, merely working properly when the photo was perfectly even so and in sharp focus, which the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S6 didn't always desire to do.
In a chat with David Parry, senior innovations manager for HP, he said that one of the goals of the Sprocket app was "reinventing the mode y'all experience memory." While the assorted elements of photograph group, automatic location info and AR video options all bear witness promise of ane day doing that, it still feels like a gimmick, and a clunky i at that.
Performance
Unfortunately, the near important matter any photo printer does – printing photos – is the one surface area where the Sprocket 2-in-1 is pretty mediocre. Some issues are to be expected, like the fact that photos (measuring 2 ten 3 inches) are really pocket-size, with very low resolution (313 ten 400 dpi). Patently, yous'll have some issues with lost detail when press higher-resolution pics. If you're looking to impress photos for scrapbooking or even fine-fine art quality printing, expect elsewhere. Similar the former Polaroid photos of decades past, these pictures are prized for their immediacy.
And they practise print quickly. On average, printing photos from my phone took 47.seven seconds per photo, which includes both the actual printing (33 seconds, on average) and a preprinting procedure that adds information to the image and transmits the picture to the printer (xiv seconds, on average). Using the printer's built-in camera was faster, every bit it could skip the encoding and transmitting process and jump straight to press. These instant camera prints averaged 35 seconds each.
The bigger problem is impress quality. Color was the commencement problem expanse. Colors that should have been a solid shade, or that should take smoothly transitioned from 1 shade to some other, instead had a mottled look. Flesh tones never looked right, frequently coming out unnaturally pink, and darker complexions coming out apartment and lifeless. Color consistency also varied from one photo to the side by side. When I printed the same photo twice — a cheerful field of sunflowers — the vivid yellows of one photo were more orange in the adjacent.
The other consequence is that the printer introduces a number of errors into each print. Some colors would have a distinctive blueprint of banding, adding discolored stripes to a picture of a red rose, or making a bare wall appear almost striped. Other times, foreground objects would appear correct, just backgrounds were a strange mosaic-similar grid of low-resolution coloring. Neither the color issue nor the impress errors can be attributed to the Zink printing process, since neither problem showed up when using the very similar Polaroid Zilch.
Finally, the built-in v-megapixel camera is OK at all-time. Pictures taken with the Sprocket photographic camera were best under very controlled circumstances, with a well-lit subject and a steady hand. Test photos taken under such circumstances and compared against smartphone photos in those exact same circumstances appeared very like in impress.
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Less formal snapshots, on the other hand, varied hugely in quality. Photos were poorly framed, even when using the viewfinder, and the wink left photos poorly lit. In these circumstances, the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone was ever amend.
Printing Costs
The HP Sprocket uses ZINK inkless photo paper. The ZINK photograph paper is covered with a layer of colour-irresolute dye crystals, which are heated to produce the final image. The same process is used by competitors, such as the Polaroid Zip photograph printer, which also uses ZINK paper. The do good of this arroyo is twofold; first, there's no need to wait for a photo to develop, which you would become with instant motion picture, such as that used in the Fujifilm Instax Share SP-3. Second, in that location are no inks involved, so there's no worry of smudging a fresh print or having a disastrous ink spill if you leave the photograph printer in a haversack or suitcase for a long trip.
HP sells refills of the 2x3-inch ZINK paper for about 50 cents per photo. Since only 10 papers can be loaded into the printer, they come in 10-canvas packets, arranged in either a 20-sail packet ($ix.99) or a 50-pack ($24.99). We wish that buying a larger packet improved the per-photo price, simply there's no discount for ownership in bulk. (In fact, if you bought 100 sheets in 20-packs rather than 50-packs, yous would salve three cents.)
All of HP's ZINK photograph newspaper can also exist used as stickers. Peel off the backing layer from a photo and a sticky dorsum lets you slap it on your bathroom mirror or your binder for school. If y'all don't want a sticker, just exit the backing newspaper in place. It's difficult enough to remove that you lot shouldn't ever have an result with photos unwantedly turning into stickers later being kept in an envelope or a shoebox.
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Battery Life
The Sprocket 2-in-1 comes with a built-in lithium polymer 500mAh battery. There's no user-accessible battery compartment, so you'll exist able to employ the printer until the rechargeable bombardment finally gives up the ghost. Charging is unproblematic thanks to an included USB to micro USB cable, simply you tin also get away with using a micro USB phone charger in a pinch.
The Sprocket should give you enough battery life to impress twoscore photos, though that may vary slightly when using the congenital-in camera. Past comparing, the Polaroid Zip lasts for but 25 prints, while the Fujifilm Instax SP-3's battery is skilful for 160 photos.
Lesser Line
The HP Sprocket ii-in-i is an amusing toy, giving you lot the adventure to print photos on the spot, and fifty-fifty snap a few new ones as y'all become. Like most mobile snapshot printers, it doesn't offering the greatest impress quality, but it's selling instant gratification with its 2 x 3-inch photos, not pristine printing. In the end, we saw slightly amend print quality from the Polaroid Zippo, despite the two products being and so like.
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The big bespeak of divergence from the Polaroid, however, is the introduction of a born camera, and that does score some points with united states. When fun is the name of the game, the HP Sprocket 2-in-one will exist the life of the party, letting y'all snap photos besides as print them. That'due south a fun characteristic, merely in the terminate, you'll get improve photos using your phone and the Polaroid than yous'll go with the Sprocket's photographic camera.
Credit: Brian Westover/Tom's Guide
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/hp-sprocket-2-in-1-photo-printer-camera,review-4816.html
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