Why it matters to you
Mobile photo printers are getting even lighter — making them a bit easier to take anywhere.
LG wants you to get your photos off your phone and onto a phone-sized printer. Announced in international markets Tuesday, the LG Pocket Photo PD261 is a sleek update to the company’s small printers with an even lighter profile.
Weighing it at about four ounces, LG says the PD261 brings the small printers down to the weight of a typical smartphone, shaving a few ounces off the earlier model. At about an eighth of an inch thick (22 millimeters), the printer is certainly deeper than a smartphone but has a similar width and height, about three by five inches.
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Like earlier models, the LG PD261 doesn’t use traditional ink cartridges but instead uses paper with embedded ink crystals that are heat activated. The mobile printer spits out mini two-by-three-inch Zink prints with a solid 313 dpi resolution. Each photo takes about 60 seconds to print.
The printer works with both Android and iPhone smartphones, wirelessly connecting using Bluetooth. An app allows users to edit their shots before printing. Inside the app, you can add a QR code to link to your social media pages — or even use it to hand out your phone number.
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The printer is powered by a rechargeable li-ion battery that takes about an hour and a half to fully recharge.
While the PD261 isn’t LG’s first attempt to create a photo printer you can take with you, it weighs less than earlier options. The printer is available in both white and pink and sells for around $119, with 30 pieces of Zink paper for about $13. Introduced first in South Korea and international markets, there is no word yet if — or when — the photo printer would be available in the U.S.