HP Sprocket review: The nifty pocket printer you don't need

When it comes to pocket printers, not many companies make them. There are a few portable printers available in the market, like the Canon CP1000 Selphy that is the size of a bread loaf and can give you 4x6 photo album prints, or the Epson workforce WF-100 that's almost the size of a laptop but can print regular A4 pages in colour.

None of them can fit in your pocket though, something that the HP Sprocket can do. Going by the selfie trend, HP launched Sprocket for "millennials". It is a printer measuring smaller than your average 5-inch smartphone and it can print photos wirelessly from your phone. So, photos are obviously small, the size of an ID card and will fit in your wallet. Let's take a look at how it works, the quality this tiny printer can deliver and at what cost.

Setting up Sprocket

It is easy to setup the Sprocket, at least compared to a conventional printer. It comes with a built-in rechargeable battery to power it, there are no cartridges to be installed, no ink to be filled, no calibration to be done.

The ink is already embedded on small sheets that are to be used on the printer. HP Sprocket ships with a pack of 10 Zink sheets. Zink literally means Zero Ink, a paper that doesn't require ink to be printed on. They come in 2x3 inch size and you will also find them on Polaroid cameras.

The top of the printer can be slid open to put Zink sheets, all 10 at once. There is actually a mini tray inside to keep the Zink sheets.

The printer is controlled by an app that can be downloaded free from the Apple and Android app stores. After you install the app on a phone, the printer connects to the smartphone via Bluetooth and synchornises to provide battery and print status. There is also an option to shuts down the printer automatically to save battery.

There is no NFC on board so you can't touch and connect the printer. Moreover, photos cannot be printer directly from your phone gallery.

All the photos appear on your device appear on the app (the app requires permission to gallery and camera). There is also an option to sync your Facebook, Instagram and Google accounts to access photos directly on to the app. But there is also no option to cancel once you have given the print command. By the time you cancel it from the print queue menu, the printer has already started printing.

The Sprocket quality is surely better than affordable instant cameras of this price range but it is nowhere near to what a conventional printer can deliver

The HP Sprocket app also has some nifty photo editing tools that allow you to add frames, filters, text, scribble or pre-loaded stickers or graphics onto the photo. The orientation is automatically adjusted to utilise the full size of the print and you can manually rotate the photo any way with pinch-zoom-rotate two-finger gestures.

Print quality

Since Sprocket connects directly to your smartphone, you get much better photos than what you expect from affordable instant cameras. But then again, photo quality is very subjective and very different from what you see on your smartphone screen, so let me break this down further.

Instant cameras have their own optics in place, alongside the printing mechanism. Comparing it with classic analog Polaroids, the quality of recently launched instant camera is not that good. Priced under Rs 10,000, instant cameras like Instax deliver much inferior quality compared to regular Polaroids.

On the other side, take out the printer and give it capabilities to wirelessly talk to smart device makes for much better setup, however un-nostalgic that might be. Phone cameras can capture good photos, especially low light shots, for they have software and a dedicated ISP on-board to make good photos before you print them. On instant cameras there's minimal hardware to capture the scene.

Having said that, the Sprocket does compress photos or in other words lower the quality. The images that come out of the portable printer may appear dull compared to the photos you see on the phone. Much of the detail is lost, and the colours lose their sheen.

This may not matter to you if you travel months at an end and have a habit of maintaining a daily diary. Getting a photo in a mid of desert or mountain days away from civilization for your travelogue will be terrific.

But for those who have access -- doesn't matter sooner or later -- to much better printers, you can get far better photos at a much lower cost. Not to mention the Sprocket prints are small. They are smaller than Instax, and way smaller than the classic square Polaroid prints.

Cost per page

A pack of 20 Zink sheets sell on Amazon at Rs 599. Since the printing doesn't require any ink, cost of paper is the only cost involved. So per photo you would be paying around 30 rupees. This doesn't take into account the cost of Sprocket, which would make the print more expensive.

If you were to order the photos from a photo lab, they will turn out to be easier on your pocket. A 4x6 album print will not only be bigger in size, but also have much better quality. But far from instant delivery, that may require several days to get you the print.

Also Read: HP Sprocket is a wireless, pocket-sized photo printer for Rs 8,999

The other option is that in place of HP Sprocket (at the same price) you can print up to A4-size photos as instantly as the sprocket if you are near the printer or as soon as you get home. They may cost as much as the Zink sheet but they will be bigger and have much better quality.

The comparison isn't a fair one, for the Sprocket can print in your car while you are driving. Conventional printers can't do that. It only points to the need for neatly laying down your requirements of printing on the go and weighing it alongside the proposition of printing otherwise. But yet, we feel it is a comparison that needs to be made.

Should you buy?

The HP Sprocket addresses a very specific set of printing needs. And it is fun. Precisely put, it is an instant portable personal printer. But I was really hard-pressed to think who will want it, especially in a country where you find photo-wallas at pretty much every tourist site.

If you love to have instant photos, Sprocket, although slightly expensive at Rs 8,999, is a device made for you. But then chances are that probably you don't average quality instant photos. The Sprocket quality is surely better than affordable instant cameras of this price range but it is nowhere near to what a conventional printer can deliver.