Polaroid POGO: Instant Gratification
Last November, I posted about Polaroid’s leap back into instant photo gratification with POGO, an ultra-portable photo printer using zero ink technology from Zink. I was pretty stoked about the device; I was big fan of Polaroid back in the day and recently I’ve been looking for a decent method to print out some mobile pictures.
Time goes by and the POGO falls off my radar… that is until I walked into Target today and noticed it was on sale for $129 (original price, $149)! The desire for instant gratification struck instantly. I instantly had to have it and instantly marched to the camera counter. Instantly purchasing it, my compadres and I (we were on a post GBC breakfast excursion) instantly headed back to the car.
I instantly started to free my overpriced photo printer from its cardboard cage welcoming it into my loving realm of mobile gadgetra. Immediately inspecting the instructions, I installed the battery and paper pack; it instantly spit out the paper calibration “smart sheet.” And then it instantly died.
First gripe: put a charge in the battery for Christ’s sake. I know we all are supposed to charge a full 2-24 hours before stuff works, but no one ever does and most everything else has at least half a charge on purchase (ipod, phone, camera…).
With my efforts dashed to justify the purchase with my compadres by showing them the awesome power of instant gratification, I eventually made my way to my office to plug the damned thing in. Eventually, I unraveled the power block and extension cord; the POGO prints while plugged in, but this is a mobile gadget and meant to be carted around in a messenger bag. the construction is solid and metally. I’d say it weighs about a pound, but feels very study. The thing was expensive enough; it better weigh a ton.
On to printing. I tested the pogo with the gamut of photo sources, all routed from my phones bluetooth; you can connect to a digital camera with a USB cable as long as you have a PictBridge enabled camera. First picture was one I took of kirk, taken with my T-Mobile Shadow in a lot of sunlight; it came out well enough. Then, I emailed a few pictures from Scranto’s flickr to my phone and printed them out with more stunning results. The colors were full and bright, and the resolution crisp. At 2×3 inches per photo, you won’t have to worry that much about mobile phone resolution; anything over a mega pixel will look just fine printed from the POGO.
Since a lot of my BuffaViews and Snaps are in B/W, I printed out skylar from my previous post, and Lafeyette Square from the post before. Since the ZINK technology isn’t CYMK but rather CMY, the b/w photos had a slight blue hue, which I don’t seem to mind at all.
If you really enjoy having hard copies of your mobile photos, then this printer is for you. I wouldn’t recommend this for someone with a shitty camera phone, or a Verizon anything, since VZW cripples bluetooth so that it can only pair with a headset.
Tags: Photo Printer, POGO, Polaroid, Target, Zink
