Best and Worst Digital Gadgets of 2009

It's that time of the year again, the time for hundred of lists that tell you what's the best, and what's the worst, this one from Business Week is quite entertaining, it names the Samsung ST550 (shown above), as one of the best digital cameras of the year, along with the Panasonic Lumix GF1. The Samsung ST550 is available for £212 from Amazon UK. They also name the Polaroid Two - Instant Digital Camera (shown below) as one of the worst:

At £149 the Polaroid Instant Digital Camera seems expensive as it only has a 5 megapixel camera (with no optical zoom and dubious image quality), and you'd probably be much better buying any budget camera, and buying the Poloroid Pogo Instant Printer instead, priced at only £23!

Polaroid Two Digital Instant Camera

Amazon UK are now selling the new Polaroid Pogo Instant Digital Camera and Printer called the Polaroid Two, it uses the Zink printing technology, as featured in the Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer - features a 5mp camera, 3" screen, no optical zoom (4x digital zoom), prints 2" x 3" photos, and takes SD cards. It is available for £173, although you might get better results and value for money by buying the Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer and a seperate camera. More details at Polaroid.

Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer Competition Winner

The winner of the new Polaroid Pogo mini Zink printer - as reviewed here worth £80 - is Joanne Bell, from County Down, and has been contacted (via email) - don't worry, if you didn't win, you will automatically be entered into future competitions! The Polaroid Pogo prints small 3 inch by 2 inch stickers that dry instantly using Zink paper with built in ink and can print from USB and Bluetooth devices, such as a digital camera or mobile phone.

All you need to do to enter future competitions is join our newsletter:

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"Overall: As an extremely portable printing solution the Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer is an appealling choice, priced competitively at £80, there are very few competitors." - Read our Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer Review

Win a Polaroid Pogo Mobile Photo Printer!

You can win the new Polaroid Pogo mini Zink printer - as reviewed here worth £80 - all you have to do is subscribe to our newsletter to be in with a chance - we'll even throw in 30 sheets of zink photo paper! The Polaroid Pogo prints small 3 inch by 2 inch stickers that dry instantly using Zink paper with built in ink and can print from USB and Bluetooth devices, such as a digital camera or mobile phone.

All you need to do to enter the competition is join our newsletter, and competition winners will be announced on the 1st of March:

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"Overall: As an extremely portable printing solution the Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer is an appealling choice, priced competitively at £80, there are very few competitors." - Read our Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer Review

Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer Mini Review

The Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer, from Polaroid, is a compact inkless Zink based printer with USB and bluetooth support that prints small 3" by 2" sticker photos. It uses a lithium-ion rechargable battery and photos take roughly 1 minute to print. The printer comes with 10 sheets of Zink Photo Paper, an AC adapter and power lead, bluetooth passcode (printed on a card under the printer), a 1 year warranty and a short user manual. The printer is available for £86, with additional paper available for £9 for 30 sheets.

Read our Polaroid Pogo Zink Printer Mini Review here.

Here's what Polaroid have to say about the printer:

"Polaroid has reinvented instant photography for the digital age with the Polaroid PoGo™ Instant Mobile Printer. Sleek, stylish, and easy to use, the Polaroid PoGo™ Instant Mobile Printer lets you share photos whether you are on vacation or just hanging out with your friends. Bring Polaroid magic from your camera cell phone or digital camera with ZINK™ Zero Ink™ Printing Technology from ZINK Imaging. Mobile and easy-to-use, the Polaroid PoGo™ Instant Mobile Printer provides a new, innovative way to share digital photos directly from your camera cell phone or digital camera, instantly. The Polaroid Way."

The pictures above (click to enlarge) show bluetooth photos printed from the Sony Ericsson C905 - transfer was fairly rapid - however the first photo is slightly under-exposed (taken without flash) and this is exagerated when printed and appears slightly too dark. The second photo, of the Super Lamb Banana looks better (view the original photo here), with good detail, although it too is overly dark in the shadowy areas of the photo and vertical banding can be seen in the prints.

Loading the paper is very straightforward, the top of the printer opens up at the press of a button and the paper is placed into the printer, with a barcode "Zink Smart Sheet" at the bottom, this is read through the printer presumably so the printer knows how many sheets of photo paper have been loaded. The side features a power button, battery and alarm status LEDs, and usb socket.

The Lithium Ion battery (7.4v, 450mAh) sits under a metal cover, and provides 15 print battery life, after a full charge of two hours.

Click to enlarge - The print quality is acceptable, detail appears quite good, but colour could be better (reds are oversaturated for example). Dark areas often print overly dark, and there appears to be quite noticable verticle banding in all photos. The paper is glossy in appearance, and photos are printed with some cropping due to the different aspect ratios (digital is 4:3, while this prints onto 3:2). The photos shown above were taken with the Canon Powershot SX110 IS, and the original versions can be found in the Canon Powershot SX110 IS Gallery.

Overall: As an extremely portable printing solution the Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer is an appealling choice, priced competitively at £86, there are very few competitors. The Polaroid Pogo offers acceptable, albeit small, prints, and has good connectively through bluetooth and USB pictbridge. The only concerns are the slightly high cost per print, the short battery life, the average print quality and the small photo size, but if you just want something ultra small and portable then the Polaroid Pogo could be for you.

What I like:
+ Very small portable photo printer
+ Bluetooth and USB support (Pictbridge)
+ Very easy to use, without referring to the manual
+ No need to buy ink
+ Acceptable prints

What I don't like:
- Small prints
- Banding in images
- Print quality could be better
- 15 print battery life
- Expensive prints (30p each)

For more information please visit the Polaroid website. The photos shown of the prints and printer were taken with flash and therefore the prints looks brighter than they actually are.