I’m a senior updates writer at Wirecutter covering hobbies, cameras, powering, and work-from-home equipment. 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.

For this guide:

• I spent over 11 hours researching and testing five new instant printers.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.
• In accordance with Wirecutter standards, I return or donate all products I’ve tested once my assessment of them is complete, which may involve longer-term testing by my colleagues and me. I never hang on to “freebies” once testing is done.

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.

If you think you might want to print photos stored on your phone and print images captured in the moment, you might prefer an instant camera.

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 CP1500, our pick for larger prints, can connect to a computer through USB, too, but that’s atypical of this category.

You’ll encounter a few kinds of instant-print technology:

• The most popular type, what many people refer to as a “Polaroid,” uses the same type of film as Fujifilm’s Instax instant cameras.
• There’s also Zink, which is short for “zero ink” (because it doesn’t use ink to produce the image).
• Dye-sublimation printing, also commonly referred to as dye-sub or 4-pass printing, uses a ribbon to layer four colors of ink on paper as it passes through the printer multiple times. For most dye-sublimation printers, you need to keep at least one print’s worth of space behind them to ensure that the paper can pass in and out without issue.

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 Instax prints 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 [and don’t] 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:

• Easy to use: The printer should be fun and designed to be enjoyed without much instruction or a big learning curve. We looked for printers that are easy to understand and use, so you can go quickly from installing the app to printing a photo.
• Readily accessible, wallet-friendly film: You shouldn’t need to go hunting for film when your stash runs out, so we prioritized printers with film that’s widely available and not too expensive (less than $1 per exposure).
• Decent warranty: You can find a lot of white-label instant printers from companies without long-standing reputations, so we looked only at printers backed by their manufacturers with at least a one-year warranty.

For testing, we printed the same set of five images on each printer. Among the images was a linear resolution test chart to evaluate how well the printers handled detail, a color chart to assess how each printer reproduced colors differently, 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.

What about image quality?

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 had their own 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 prints 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.

Top pick

The best instant printer

Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 3

This printer creates film-like, credit-card-sized images that are vibrant and fun. It’s about the size of a small hard drive, so you can take it with you just about anywhere.

$100 from Amazon

$99 from Walmart

$100 from Best Buy

Film for the Mini Link 3

Fujifilm Instax Mini Film (Twin Pack)

Buying Instax Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.

$15 from Amazon

$25 from Walmart

$20 from Best Buy

The Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 3 is a fun-to-use, ultraportable photo printer that consistently delivers beautiful images. Of all the printers we tested, the Mini Link 3 was the easiest to set up and use; we went from unboxing to printing in under five minutes.

The prints are small but vibrant. The images are slightly smaller than a credit card, measuring 2.1 inches wide by 3.4 inches tall (with borders). Prints eject immediately after you tap the Print button in the app, and they take about 90 seconds to fully develop.

It uses the same film as Instax cameras. Prints from the Mini Link 3 are just as colorful and dreamy as those from an Instax camera. Sharing Mini film packs between your Instax camera and printer is a major convenience, although partially used film packs can’t be transferred between the devices because light exposure would ruin the remaining prints.

Refills are affordable and easy to find. A twin-pack costs about $14 at this writing, so each exposure costs about 70¢. Unlike with some of the instant films we tested from other brands, getting replacement packs of Fujifilm’s Instax film is easy since they’re sold just about everywhere.

Image quality is solid, with a few limitations. Our Instax test prints 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 they were 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 not being able to see the photos’ iconic white border.

Of the Mini Link 3’s output, tester and Wirecutter senior updates writer Sri Rain Stewart said, “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.”

The Mini Link 3 is portable and user-friendly. This compact printer, about the size of a portable hard drive, has two buttons: one large button for power and a smaller one for app features. An LED light around the power button indicates the printer’s status—white for Print Mode and flashing rainbow colors during printing.

Compared with the larger Fujifilm Instax Link Wide printer, which measures 5.6 by 5 by 1.3 inches and weighs 12 ounces, the Mini Link 3 is compact, measuring 3.5 by 4.9 by 1.4 inches and weighing less than 9 ounces with film. It’s small and light enough to slip into a bag or even a large coat pocket for easy portability.

The app is simple and versatile. 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, such as stickers on top of your picture.

The Mini Link app also includes features such as Click to Collage, which captures a series of six images in short intervals and allows you to print them as a collage, creating a photo-booth effect. The AiR Studio feature adds customizable 3D effects, such as confetti or balloons, to your photos, helping you design dynamic scenes before printing.

It has motion-sensor technology. If you turn the printer upright, the app switches to Print Mode; laying the printer flat activates Fun Mode. Though the shift between modes is primarily visual, you can still access all of the printing features regardless of the orientation. The tilt function also remains, allowing you to zoom in or out by tilting the printer, though we found that this feature added little value.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• The prints lose some detail. Although our panelists widely loved the film-like quality of the Mini Link 3’s prints, we also found that the final images often lacked detail and clarity. This isn’t the printer to choose if you prioritize color accuracy over aesthetics.
• The body feels a bit flimsy. The printer’s lightweight plastic body helps keep it portable, but it feels a little thin and cheap. It doesn’t inspire confidence that it would survive a drop.

Best for...

Best for printing landscape and group shots

Fujifilm Instax Link Wide

This printer produces the same bold and beautiful look as the Mini Link, but on film that’s about twice the width. Though the printer itself is a tad larger, it’s still small enough to tote around.

$150 from Walmart

$148 from Amazon

$150 from Best Buy

Best for owners of the Link Wide

Fujifilm Instax Wide Film (Twin Pack)

Fujifilm’s twin-packs typically give you the best price on Instax Wide film.

$20 from Amazon

$20 from Walmart

Buy from Best Buy

If you love the look and feel of film-like Instax photos but want prints that are twice as wide (landscapes, anyone?), the Fujifilm Instax Link Wide is the way to go.

Its prints look great. Prints from the Link Wide are just as vibrant as those from the Mini Link 3, and they’re much larger. They measure 4.3 inches wide by 3.4 inches tall (including the classic white border), more than double the width of those from our top pick.

The app is streamlined. The Link Wide has its own app, which offers a simpler experience in comparison with the Mini Link app. It includes a Simple Print function for printing directly from your phone, as well as a Collage feature that allows you to add up to 16 images to one print. However, it lacks the social and fun features, such as stickers and 3D effects, that are available in the Mini Link app.

The prints are great for landscapes. The horizontal prints from the Link Wide are ideal for capturing landscapes or group portraits. In our test panel, the landscape prints were a clear favorite.

“It looks creamy and lovely, and nothing is blown out,” said professional photo editor Sarah Kobos.

The film is a little pricier. The film packs for the Link Wide cost a bit more than the Mini film packs, with a price of around $19 for 20 exposures or about 95¢ per print. However, these prints are significantly larger, and they’re worth the investment if you prefer wider, landscape-style photos.

The prints are creamy but darker and less sharp. The photos we printed with the Link Wide had the same creamy, colorful quality as those from the Mini Link 3, but they tended to be slightly darker and less sharp. Although they weren’t as detailed or color-accurate as those from dye-sub printers like the Canon Selphy CP1500, the aesthetic still appealed to many of our testers.

“The soft-glow quality makes it more pleasant to look at,” said Wirecutter senior staff writer Caira Blackwell. Testers also appreciated the flattering colors, though some noted that they were slightly oversaturated.

Best for...

Best for larger prints

Canon Selphy CP1500

This printer produces larger, 4-by-6-inch images with surprisingly good color and sharpness for a portable printer.

$139 from Amazon

$218 from Walmart

$140 from Best Buy

Best for owners of the CP1500

Canon KP-108IN Color Ink/Paper Set

Canon’s refill bundle has enough ink and paper for 108 prints.

$32 from Amazon

$34 from Walmart

Contrary to the small film-like images you get from our Fujifilm Instax picks, the Canon Selphy CP1500 produces sharper prints with more accurate-looking colors on larger, 4-by-6-inch borderless glossy paper, similar to prints you would get from Walgreens.

It offers high-quality, sharp prints. The CP1500 uses dye-sublimation printing technology, which layers colors onto the paper in four passes before applying a protective coating. Unlike other dye-sub printers we tested, which often showed banding, the CP1500 delivered stunning images with rich, natural colors that weren’t oversaturated. Both light and dark areas of the photos looked true to life, and details were sharp and clear.

Printing images with the CP1500 doesn’t seem as instant as it does with our top pick, the Mini Link 3, since this printer makes several passes over the photo before it’s done. But once the CP1500’s printing is complete, the photo is ready; in contrast, the Mini Link 3 spits out the film right away but the image then takes over five minutes to develop.

It’s more expensive up front, but it costs less per print. Although the CP1500 is pricier to start with than our Instax picks, it offers sharper images with more accurate-looking colors and a lower cost per print. Canon offers ink and paper packs that provide enough supplies for 108 prints for $30 (about 27¢ per print), making this printer more economical in the long run.

It provides multiple ways to print. Similar to our Instax picks, the CP1500 can print from a cell phone via an app, but it also has an SD card slot for printing directly from a memory card, as well as a USB-C port for connecting to a computer. This makes it a better choice if you keep most of your images on a computer rather than a phone.

The design is sleek and functional. The CP1500 comes in two colors: black and white. The black version, which we tested, has a premium look with a matte finish.

The printer’s buttons are mostly flush with the surface, except for a slightly raised OK button for easy access. The paper tray attaches to the front, and an SD card slot and a USB-C port are located behind a front panel, so you can easily manage all functions from the same area.

Wireless printing is smooth and reliable. For wireless printing, the Canon Print app allows you to connect either via an ad-hoc Wi-Fi signal sent by the printer or through your home router. During testing, we experienced consistent connections with no drops, unlike with some other printers we tested, which lost connection during printing.

It has a user-friendly screen and controls. In contrast to Fujifilm printers that rely solely on their apps, the Canon Selphy CP1500 has a built-in 3.2-inch screen for previewing images and navigating menus. Although the screen isn’t touch-sensitive, the buttons are well designed and easy to use. However, the menu system can seem a bit slow at times, and magnifying images to check for focus takes a few seconds.

While it’s nice to be able to access most of the app’s edit tools and effects within the printer, the screen on the top is merely adequate. It’s not high-resolution enough for you to tell which images are in critical focus when you’re browsing photos on an SD card.

The app offers advanced editing options. The Canon printing app provides more control over your images than Fujifilm’s apps. You can crop, rotate, and adjust brightness, contrast, and saturation.

The app also lets you customize borders and apply time stamps. It offers several unusual layouts, such as Bookmark Layout, which prints images in a strip for cutting into bookmarks, and ID Photo, which includes preloaded passport-size dimensions and guides to ensure proper alignment.

It’s portable but heavier than Instax printers. The Canon Selphy CP1500 can print from anywhere, but at 2.4 pounds (3.1 pounds with the charging cable), it’s heavier than the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 3. It isn’t as effortless to carry with you on outings, but it’s certainly still portable.

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 senior staff writer covering cameras, printers, and scanners, said that he has used previous models in the field with a rechargeable battery, and they worked just fine. Canon claims that the rechargeable battery can last for about 54 prints per charge.

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 CP1500. 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 $24 for 80 exposures at this writing, which works out to 37¢ per image (10¢ more per photo compared with the CP1500).

If you don’t mind missing out on features to save a little: The Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 2 offers the same fun, film-like prints as the Mini Link 3 does, but at a slightly lower price (a little less than $90 at this writing). It lacks the newer model’s advanced features, such as Click to Collage and AiR Studio, but still delivers colorful, creamy prints that are perfect for capturing spontaneous moments. It’s also just as portable as our top pick, with similar dimensions and weight.

This is not a comprehensive list of all instant cameras we’ve tested. We have removed any cameras that have been discontinued or that do not meet our current requirements.

The HP Sprocket Studio Plus is a nicely designed printer—the paper tray detaches from the body and sits on top, held in place by a small magnet when the printer is not in use. In our tests its image quality was a little more saturated and contrasty than that of the Canon Selphy CP1500. Images of art or flowers looked good, but the extra saturation was unflattering for skin tones, and the added contrast resulted in some noticeable sharpening in detailed areas such as tree foliage and buildings, which made our test images look crunchy. Lastly, its print refills are more expensive for fewer exposures.

A former pick, the Fujifilm Mini Link, prints images identical in quality to those of its successors but has fewer features and costs the same, so we think you should get the Mini Link 3 instead. However, if you find the Mini Link at a steep discount and don’t think that the new features are worth the extra money, you can get great prints from the Mini Link.

The HP Sprocket Select and the Kodak Step use Zink technology for their prints. We’ve dismissed cameras that produce Zink prints in our guide to instant cameras due to their consistently low image quality, and we’re doing the same here.

The Canon Selphy QX10 consistently delivered beautiful, colorful images almost as good-looking as those of the CP1500, 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.

At one time we considered naming the Kodak Mini 2 HD as our top pick because it offered higher color accuracy than the original Fujifilm Instax Mini Link and tied that model as our test panel’s favorite. Unfortunately, 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 that it didn’t recognize the cartridge. Such 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, 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 whenever 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, requiring new owners to sign up with their email addresses before they can print. This is too much commitment. Plus, this Lifeprint model uses Zink technology, which we don’t love.

This article was edited by Ben Keough, Phil Ryan, and Erica Ogg.