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At first glance, the Polaroid Pogo printer is a singularly, unremarkable piece of equipment. It has a small on/off switch, two LED's and a standard USB socket. The packaging contains little in the way of instructions and unless you actually know what the Pogo is, you may be hard pressed to guess what it could be used for. Even once you know what it does, you might easily dismiss it as yet another piece of pointless tech gadgetry that is going to clutter up an already groaning desk drawer. In fact that was possibly my first reaction when my girlfriend Claudine handed me a brightly coloured box with the Polaroid logo emblazoned on it. To tell you the truth I was little confused as I knew that getting hold of Polaroid film was about as likely as me waking up next to Carol Vorderman.
 
However, it did not take me too long to both set up the little device and to see a very good use for it. The Pogo is a tiny printer - about the size of a pack of playing cards - which uses Polaroids Zero Ink or Zink technology. You load up the printer by popping open the top and inserting a pack of business card sized papers inside. The Pogo links to most Bluetooth-enabled phones, with one major exception - the iPhone. This is slightly frustrating as it is clearly the perfect partner . It also connects directly to any PictBridge compatible camera, using a standard USB/MicroUsb lead.
 
Of course if you are a mobile phone wielding teenager, then you could soon have the Pogo spitting out pictures of your miscreant mates. The fact that the prints have a peel off sticky back means that even more juvenile fun could be had. For the more mature / serious photographer, I can think of at least one very good reason to be able to hook this device up to your camera, and it is for this reason that I have been given the Pogo. We will be traveling to Indonesia in January next year and there are still a lot of villages and indigenous tribes people who have little or no access to technology. To be able to take pictures of these people and their surroundings and leave them with a small photograph is fantastic. A lot of these people probably do not have a single photograph of themselves or any of their relatives. To be able to give these impromptu models a simple and hopefully treasured keepsake is a great way to say thank you.
 
Apart from supporting the iPhone, there are a couple of other points to mention. The prints could benefit from being slightly larger, although this would obviously increase the size of the device. In terms of its colour rendition, the Pogo could be improved, but then this is a relatively inexpensive and fun device and each print costs about 20 - 25 pence so maybe expecting Pantone colour accuracy is a bit of a stretch. The final point is about the battery, Polaroid say that you should get 15 prints off one charge. In my tests I was able to get 10 or 12 prints from a charge. The unit will print whilst it is on charge, this is fine if you are round at your granny's and want to leave a couple of prints of the kids stuck to the fridge but not much use if your are in a remote jungle village. Although the device itself is pocketable, the charger is a huge brick of a thing that will take up a lot of room in a bag.
 
So there are the ups and downs of the funky little Pogo, but how easy is it to use. I tried it out with my old Bluetooth enabled Nokia 6230i, Claudine's Nikon D90 and my Canon G9. Printing from the Nokia simply required me to pair the phone with the Pogo, pick a picture, hit the send button and select the Pogo from the Bluetooth menu. Printing via Bluetooth takes a little over minute, with the majority of the time taken up with moving the data from the host device to the Pogo.
 
Since I usually shoot in RAW, getting the Nikon D90 to print took a little extra step, but nothing too involved: hit the Menu button on the camera, find the Retouch menu, select Small Picture, set the size to 640 X 480, select the image(s) you want to resize using the zoom-out button, and press OK. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to create X number of small images. answer yes and the Nikon will convert the RAW file(s)to something much smaller. Of course if you know you are shooting for the Pogo only you could set the image size on your camera to a small JPEG.
 
The D90 does not have Bluetooth but you can attach it to the Pogo using a USB to mini USB cable. Once you are connected, a PictBridge menu will appear. Follow a few simple prompts for the pictures you would like to print and the Pogo spits out the finished image in less than 10 seconds. The G9, for all it's funky style and goodness, does not have the ability to resize from a RAW image in camera. You do have the option to shoot both RAW and JPEG at the same time and so I would suggest you use this option. You can then you use the preview function and resize any images to S which is 640 X 480. Connecting the Pogo and G9 requires a cable and as soon as you marry them up and turn them, on you'll get a bright blue LED on the print button on the rear of the camera. Select the appropriately resized image, hit the set button and wait for the prints to pop out.
 
At less than fifty of your UK pounds this is a fun and useful device that certainly has a place in my camera bag despite a few niggles. If nothing else one can keep all variety of natives and relatives happy.

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