HP - Sprocket Studio 4" x 6" Photo Printer

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  HP Sprocket printer

  • Incentivized
  • My Best Buy® Elite Member
  • Verified Purchaser
  • Owned for 1 month

  Easy to follow instructions for setup be it IOS or android. Easy to print from phone and supper good looking 4 x 6 prints. Color and finish are excellent. Yes I would recommend this to a friend.

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  This review is from HP - Sprocket Studio 4x6” Instant Photo Printer - White

  Posted 4 years ago by Papa

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Compact, prints w/bright colors & sharp detail

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 250 Contributor

  While the HP Sprocket Studio is not the first dye sublimation photo printer that I’ve used, it’s the first one that I’ve owned that prints full-size 4x6 photo prints. Even so, this printer still manages to have a pretty small form-factor and has a footprint smaller than a sheet of printer paper (10.5”L x 6.75”W x 2.5”H). The paper tray is even detachable, making it even more compact for travel, and there is an option to use a portable battery unit with it (sold separately). For setup, simply load the included paper and cartridge, download the HP Sprocket mobile app, and pair the printer via Bluetooth to an Android or iOS mobile device. The whole process takes about 5 minutes. However, if you’re looking to print photos from a computer, unfortunately the Sprocket Studio does not support this type of connectivity. Using the app for straight up printing is fairly easy. You can select photos from your phone’s camera gallery, connect various social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, or Google Photos, and print pictures directly from those services. However, for anything beyond that, the experience was a bit more frustrating. For me, app navigation was initially confusing with ambiguous icons for the various tools and no helpful hover hints at their function. The photo editor itself had some major hiccups. For example, if you added stickers, text, and filters to your image, but subsequently tried to add a pre-set overlay template, it would wipe out all your previous additions and changes, but not vice versa. Also, it wasn’t easy to distinguish when you were committing just the most recent edit or all edits in your session; with the former you could use the undo button to back out of the change, but with the latter, undo isn’t available and you would have to discard your draft and start all over again. After editing your photo you can print it, of course, but also save or share directly to online storage accounts and social media. There are also a few of other fun and useful photo modes in the app like photobooth for a quick succession of 4 photos, a tiles print mode that lets you assemble 9 prints into a single larger image, and ‘ID card’ which allows you to quickly and easily snap and print a set of 2x2 inch passport photos at home. As for the printing process itself, it was quick and straightforward. Once you have an image edited, cropped, positioned, and sized how you want it, tap the printer icon in the app, and the image will be sent to the printer queue, which takes roughly 35 seconds. After the printer receives the data, it starts printing immediately, though a single print takes about 2 minutes to complete. During this time the paper passes in and out of the printer, from both the front and back of the unit, so be sure to leave at least 5 inches behind the machine clear as to not interfere with the paper. Other print jobs waiting in the queue can be deleted from the queue via the app while a photo is printing. Also, keep in mind the printer can only fit 10 photo sheets at a time, so you’ll have to reload the tray after every 10 prints. One feature that I was very interested to try was the augmented reality Reveal, which is supposed to invisibly watermark your photo, then bring up additional content like location data and related photos and videos when the print is scanned by the app later. Although I turned on the Reveal feature for several of my prints, and the app indicated Reveal content was being added prior to printing, subsequent scanning of my prints revealed… well nothing. The app simply said “No Reveal content found,” however, it did correctly recognize the printer itself and would show the next photo in its queue floating above the machine, which I thought was pretty neat. The quality of the prints is very good. I found the colors to be bright, though perhaps slightly undersaturated and on the cooler side than what I saw on my mobile device. The details in the prints were pretty sharp. If you looked closely enough at fine lines, you might see a bit of a soft edge, but not enough that I would consider the print quality compromised. The color range is actually quite impressive for such a small printer that doesn’t use any ink, which also allows you to go long stretches between printing and not have to worry about dried up or clogged ink cartridges. Printing at home with the Sprocket Studio won’t get you the lowest price per print, but for the convenience of printing at home and having the prints ready in-hand in just a few minutes, might be worth the extra few cents. Overall, the HP Sprocket Studio delivers high-quality, full-sized, glossy photo prints that are durable and at a reasonable cost. While you're limited to mobile device connectivity, and the app could use a few tweaks, the zero ink cartridges mean you can print as frequently or infrequently as you need and not worry about the hassles ink. Prints come off the machine quickly, and the unit is small enough to keep on your desk or travel with for on-the-go printing.

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  Posted 6 years ago by ReviewedByPhil

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Great for Must Have Instant “Real” Prints.

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  • Top 250 Contributor

  REVIEW HP SPROCKET STUDIO Best Buy Tech Insider Network Review Program SUMMARY: Great for Must Have Instant “Real” Prints. Table must be 2X length of Printer. UNBOXING IMPRESSION: Easy to unbox, simple packaging. For the most part it is already assembled just install the paper and dye cartridge. The only very minor complaint I had was that there are no included instructions, but I guess that goes with the minimalist packaging, so it was not a big deal. Like most HP products you only get a starter set of supplies (10 prints). For the price I would have appreciated a full cartridge. EASE OF USE: It was easy to go to the URL included in the packaging to load the app on the phone and follow the step by step instructions. I then gave the app permission to view my photos on the phone and I selected one to print. TIP: Make sure you have enough room on your table that is twice the length of the printer. The photo paper moves out the back and then gets pulled back in, multiple times in the printing process. At first, I kept getting errors. It turned out that because I had it on the edge desk, once it pushed the paper out the back (with the paper hanging over the edge), it did not have enough strength to pull the paper back in again. I was about to call tech support when I decided to put it in the center of the desk, so that the paper was fully supported on the way out/back in. If the mechanism is so weak, they really should have a support tray in the back. OVERALL PERFORMANCE: I was skeptical that something so small could really deliver a quality 4x6 photo grade prints. Now, I am convinced, as it works very well. We used it to make Passport Photos, without any problems, or the hassle of finding a place to make them and driving there waiting in line etc. It prints rather quickly (much faster than an ink jet), and I would call these photo grade prints no problem. The price per print (about 50 cents) is certainly more than the corner store (7 cents). But if you are only printing a few prints then this is of course cheaper than driving to the store and back. The APP is only OK. I’ve not explored the app in depth, but I was not able to find a simple crop command for example. It just means that I have to edit my pics on the phone before selecting them on the app. Maybe there is a crop somewhere, but it did not jump out at me. Pressing EDIT only allowed for simple color correction for example. CONCLUSION: It is the best I have seen for quality due to dye sublimation technology. It is relatively compact, and I could see this being used at parties or when you just want a quick print to give to the grandparents or maybe even instant security badges. I would recommend this for occasional uses as mentioned above. If I had a bunch of prints to make, then I would just upload them to my local photo processor and pick them up there.

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  Posted 6 years ago by TheOffice1234