MobileTechTalk Recently I have seen a lot more instant cameras which available to consumers and its kind of a retro throwback to the older cameras in a world of digital photography. I have often wanted to buy one but the cost has made me reluctant to consider it as the camera itself isn’t hugely expensive, but buying the paper is fairly expensive and I have got used to taking multiple pictures to pick a single correct one so that is a much more expensive habit if I was to do it with one of the instant cameras. Can Prynt do anything about this?
Prynt offered to send over their Prynt Case for iPhone 6 Plus/6S Plus and I was happy to try it to see if it would be a worthwhile investment. However, they have had no control whatsoever over this review and these are all my (Siddu’s) personal views.
Inside the box, I received a 10 pack of sticky back papers, a Prynt branded micro USB cable, a user manual with all other documentation included inside it and the actual Prynt case. The box wasn’t too glamorous and was fairly basic for the price you would be paying.
The Prynt was out of battery upon receipt although this may be down to the fact that this was a review unit
rather than a retail unit and if you choose to purchase one then you will probably have some charge within the unit. The LED indicator was orange whilst charging and this LED is located next to the shutter button.
Once the app was installed on my iPhone 6S I then realised that this was intended for the Plus variant which meant that the fit wasn’t perfect for my phone although I did try a 6S Plus inside the slot to ensure the fit and I was really happy with the fit. But obviously, there are multiple variants which you could purchase which will work with the 5/5S/SE, 6/6S/7 and 6/6S/7 Plus.
Within the app, you do have some pop ups which will require you to allow access to your gallery. I was easily able to find the images from my separate folders even within the gallery app so if you have selected favourite photos then you can choose them from within the Prynt app. Once you have selected the photo of choice, you can crop, rotate and add filters to the image to modify it but I kept mine mostly the same because I was happy with the photos as they were. You could also add a video clip to the photos and this was enabled so that if you passed one of the photos onto a friend, they could view a video linked to that photo just by viewing them from within the Prynt app.
The printing process was ridiculously cool and not once through my 10 images did I stop being amazed at how cool the photos printed. You get an animation of the photo being printed live whilst it is behind the phone and the photo will go upwards on your screen as it is being printed from the printer below.
The paper was incredibly easy to print and it has a barcode on the first page which scans the paper to ensure the best alignment. The photo paper which has the Zink technology which only works with the Prynt cases so you will have to purchase the paper from Prynt themselves or a distributor.
Talking about the photo quality, the shots were taken from a variety of devices including my iPhone 6S, iPhone 5S, and Nikon D3200 so I knew there would be a difference in the actual quality of the photos. I started printing the photos off but you can only do them 1 by 1 which does make this a fairly lengthy process if you are trying to print in volume but this is highly unlikely.
I gave the photos a few minutes to fully develop but something I noticed immediately was the lack of colour accuracy from the printer. The photos I had used were well saturated but the Prynt case decided to change the colour temperature and overall look of the image hugely. I found that some of the photos which were taken where it was slightly darker in the original location resulted in oversaturated colours so the image processing that is happening within the Prynt app could be improved a huge amount.
Some of the images were more colour accurate but still had a sepia feel to them which I found looked good but some photos I was outright not happy with whatsoever. I used photos which looked really good digitally but didn’t appear as good when printed out.
The photos all have a little key on the bottom right of them which is to indicate that these are taken on the Prynt. The photos are 3” x 2” although I couldn’t find this figure listed anywhere on the amazon page for the item or on the official website which is a bit confusing.
The battery life was okay as I only had a tester pack with 10 photos but as soon as you remove your phone from the case, the case will go into sleep mode and the shutter button can be used to turn it off.
The build is really good with a leather-esque feeling hand grip which is useful when you are taking photos using the Prynt app directly, however, the button located on the top of the grip is useless outside the Prynt app which is incredibly annoying as other apps could have really taken advantage of the functionality of the buttons but I think this can probably be added in later via a software update.
The faux leather may start to get dirty after a while if you are using this out and about which is however the black on my unit also likes to pick up a lot of fingerprints so you will have to wipe this down thoroughly to ensure it looks as nice as it does in the start a few months down the road. The button is firm when not pressed however it is a bit spongy when you press it in and it is far from the satisfying click on a DSLR which is what it is trying to mimic.
Overall I have enjoyed my time with the Prynt and it seems like the company could improve upon the features which are lacking before the full UK launch. But this hasn’t allowed me to think upon the whole instant camera situation more positively because their cameras will be inferior to the ones I shot my images on.
Prynt Case
£129.99
Pros
- Good Grip
- Convenient
- Doesn't rely on built in low res camera
Cons
- Fairly pricy
- Shutter doesn't work outside of Prynt app
- Have to manually print each image
- Colours aren't accurate
