Dell’s little Bluetooth PZ310 Wasabi printer is shipping. They’ve lowered the price from $149 to $99 and it’s available in Pink, Blue and Grey. I really like that this printer doesn’t use ink. But the special Zink (Zero Ink) paper is pretty spendy at 24 sheets for $12 or 48 sheets for $20. Would you buy one?
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Since I’m dangerously close to breaking the big 4-0, I don’t think this is entirely geared towards me. What am I going to print out, stickers of things I’m supposed to remember to buy at the grocery store? Sadly un-fun.
Now, I’ve got a few nieces & maybe even nephews I could see buying this for as a gift. The media is pretty pricey though, nothing worse than a cool tech gift you can’t use because the consumables are too expensive.
@The Slapster: That’s exactly what I’m thinking…
Wow. I think I see this selling on woot or some other outlet/surplus website in the not-too-distant future for $40. I just cant see this thing selling well.
This is the replacement for Polaroid film. Polaroid, such as it is or was, has a Zink printer that looks exactly like this.
The printer melts crystals in the paper that change color commensurate with the amount of heat they receive.
Incredibly worthless to me, a 21 year old. And apparently worthless to most other people as well; the printers are on sale for half the price they originally cost when they were released last summer.
If it printed out a reasonable sized print (say 4″x6″) I could see this being useful (to have with camera gear as a “just in case” printer), but at 2″x3″ it just seems like a novelty item. Of course if it printed larger the cost of paper would probably skyrocket to an even more unreasonable level.
I will wait for Kindle-3000 that will display HD color.
Years ago I found a little battery printer for my Palm, the SiPix A6 (http://www.amazon.com/SiPix-Pocket-Printer-A6-Infrared/dp/B00005LDPI) which used thermal paper. It was cute and fun, but the paper costs and small print-out sizes really limited its functionality. It quickly became an ‘overstocked’ item and is now rarely seen.
I suspect the Wasabi will go the same way.
It is kind of sad. I would really love a truly portable multi-purpose printer, especially if it worked wirelessly. The prints would have to be bigger than 2×3 though.
I did purchase the Wasabi printer to add to my collection of gadgets (aka toys), and am pleasantly surprised. The 2″ x 3″ size is great for printing wallet size photos. Even with the plethora of gadgets that can display photos, it is nice to have an actual photo at times, and the peel and stick backing is very convenient. I am not saying this printer is a must have, but each day I find another use for it.
So far, I have printed via bluetooth to the Wasabi printer from Windows, OS X, PPC 2003SE, WM5, WM6, Palm OS 5, and Nokia OS2008 devices. In all cases, the photos printed quickly, and the connection was easy. No, you cannot print from the iPhone, the iPhone’s bluetooth does not have the proper bluetooth profiles.
The print quality does not rival my HP dedicated PhotoSmart printer, but it does a nice job for its intended purpose.
I wish to give kudos to Dell. The original printer I received had a problem ejecting the photo when finished. I called Tech Support, and was talking to a person within 5 minutes. Bottom line, a new printer was overnighted to me along with a prepaid shipping label for the return of the defective printer.