Lifeprint 2x3 Hyperphoto Printer Review

Pocket photo printers such as the HP Sprocket and the Kodak Photo Printer Mini offer the convenience of printing on the go from your phone or tablet.

The Lifeprint 2x3 Hyperphoto Printer ($129.99) takes this a step further: It comes with its own social media site for sharing photos, and using an augmented reality (AR) technology, it allows you to turn stills into movie clips, or what Lifeprint calls "hyperphotos." Overall, Lifeprint 2x3 prints well, and it's an appealing option if you're open to a unique twist on photo sharing.

Small, Light, and Easy to Use

Available in white or black, there's also a version of the Lifeprint that prints 3-by-4.5-inch photos that we'll be reviewing soon.

This model measures 1 by 3 by 5 inches (HWD) and weighs about 5 ounces, which makes it smaller than most smartphones but about twice as thick.

HP's Sprocket ($119.99 at HP) is slightly smaller and weighs an ounce more, while Kodak's Mini ($168.88 at Amazon) is slightly larger and outweighs the Lifeprint 2x3 by about 3.4 ounces.

All three, though, are highly portable.

Like the Sprocket and the Mini, the Lifeprint 2x3 prints on zero-ink, or ZINK, paper infused with cyan, magenta, and yellow crystals activated by heat during the printing process.

Overall, this process prints photos well enough, but the absence of a black ink causes a lack of depth that you get from most CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) photo printers.

To load the paper, you simply remove the cover on the device and drop it in.

The Lifeprint 2x3 gets most of its functionality via a free downloadable app for both Android and iOS.

You connect your mobile device over Bluetooth; the box itself runs on a battery rechargeable via USB.

The battery takes about an hour to charge and is good for about 15 prints, according to Lifeprint.

It comes with a 12-inch mini-USB cable, but no power adapter.

You can use the one that came with your smartphone or a USB port on your PC or laptop.

In addition to the USB port, on the same back edge, you'll find a Kingston security lock, and three status LEDs: connected, battery, and printing.

Augmented Reality

Lifeprint's "augmented reality" is really a fancy term for a slick, but not necessarily highfalutin, process of associating a short video clip (up to 15 seconds) to a still image.

The video resides on Lifeprint's Website, and the still gets printed on the Lifeprint 2x3.

There's an embedded code that prints in the still that, when viewed through your mobile device's camera in the Lifeprint mobile app, triggers the video, which then plays inside the still—on your smartphone's screen, of course.

You can create your still from a frame in the video itself or use a completely unrelated image.

Friends and family can use the Lifeprint image repository and social media site without creating an account, or buying the printer, for that matter.

The Lifeprint App

Downloading the app and connecting your mobile device to the printer is straightforward.

Lifeprint says that the image repository and social media site are designed to behave like Instagram.

Not being an avid Istagram user, I didn't find it very intuitive at all, and the lack of documentation didn't help; I wound up getting help from a company rep to get started using the software.

There's also an image-editing and enhancement section of the app that I found much easier to figure out.

From here, you can crop, color correct, remove redeye, add text and borders, and perform many other correction and embellishment routines.

In fact, this part of the software resembles a similar app that comes with the Kodak Mini.

Speed, Output Quality, and Cost of Consumables

No matter how colorful or detailed the photos were, the Lifeprint 2x3 took an average of 30 seconds to print them, with very little fluctuation from print to print.

That's about 12 seconds faster than the HP Sprocket and the Polaroid Zip took to print 2-by-3-inch photos, and 49 seconds slower than the Kodak Mini.

As mentioned, the lack of a black ink causes an overall lack of depth that you'll get with larger, CMYK inkjets, but it's not so bad that it negates the convenience factor and other perks of this product.

The photos look fine, especially for 2-by-3-inch snapshots.

In addition, the paper itself comes with an adhesive on the back that allows you to turn your photos into stickers.

As usual, using these types of devices requires some relatively expensive consumables.

If you shop around, you should be able to find 50-packs for about 50 cents per sheet, and 10-packs for about 80 cents per print.

Interestingly, while writing this, I ran across a 110-pack for $19.95, which comes out to well less than 20 cents per sheet.

This was, however, a limited-time offer.

More Than Just a Snapshot Printer

If all the Lifeprint 2x3 could do was churn out small snapshots with sticky backs, it would be just another me-too product.

But its own social media site, along with its nifty hyperphoto functionality, elevates it to a more noteworthy little printer.

Surely, grandma will enjoy viewing 15-second clips (Lifeprint says it's working on extending this to 2 minutes) of her grandchildren—and all she has to do is print and view an image through the camera on her smartphone.

Lifeprint's augmented reality has several potential applications, such as sending invitations and digital greeting cards.

Although it lacks the versatility of the Canon Selphy CP1200—our Editors' Choice small-format photo printer—in connection choices and print size, and can't match its print quality either, the Lifeprint 2x3 adds an intriguing twist to wallet-size photo printing, letting your prints seemingly come alive, Harry Potter-style, when viewed with the LifePrint mobile app.