Fujifilm Instax Mini Link: Printing pictures with ease

It’s always fun to print out your pictures and the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link makes it easier than ever with straightforward controls and a decent mobile app.

While it’s not an all-around perfect machine, it gets the job done, and I can’t ask much more from it. When it comes to getting instant photos printed, there are two main ways you can use a printer or a camera like the Fujifilm Instax Mini 11. While the cameras are always fun, if you want more control of your shots or you’re looking for a convenient way to print out your iPhone photos, a printer is for you.

These range from high-end professional printers to more cost-friendly tiny printers that print smaller pictures. The Mini Link falls into this smaller category since the images it prints are only 6.2cm by 4.6cm.

Still, it’s super fun to print out some of your cooler pictures and display them on your wall or fridge. The Instax Mini is also packed with fun features to help people get the most enjoyment out of this device as possible. Sure it might not be cost-effective to use or buy refills for, but the Mini is fun, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

How do you use it

Once you have the Mini booted up, you need to download the Instax Mini app (iOS, Android). This is how you’ll send pictures to the printer to be developed.

There are two options within the printer, ‘Fun Mode’ and ‘Print Mode.’ Fun Mode is the more interesting of the two because it’s where all of the most useful features are housed. There are some exciting modes here, like the ability to add some frames and stickers to your picture, a collage mode, ‘Party mode’ and ‘Match Test.’

‘Party Mode’ allows five people to connect and send pictures to the printer at the same time. You can print collages together, or you can let the Instax create a random print that you won’t be able to see until it develops.

Match Test works similarity. You either take a photo of two people or send two pictures (one of each person) to the printer and it runs some kind of test to determine your compatibility. My girlfriend and I received a 78 percent rating, but our perseverance score is only 2/5. That said it was still fun to use and waiting for it to develop was a nice bit of suspense in my otherwise boring life.

The other Fun Modes are cool too and add levity to the printer that I’m sure everyone who tries it will enjoy.

The standard Print Mode offers basic controls like printing a photo, taking a picture and printing a frame from a video. You can also edit images before you publish them with basic correction tools like brightness, saturation and contrast. These are nice to have, but it’s safe to assume most people will edit their pictures in another app.

There are other useful features snuck inside of the printer too. For instance, if you have a Fujifilm X series camera, you can connect it to the printer with the Fujifilm Camera Remote app (Android, iOS). Beyond that, the printer has a gyroscope in it to allow for some cool actions. In the camera mode, you can tilt the printer to control your camera’s zoom. If you turn the printer vertically, it will enter Print Mode, and if you turn it on its side, it goes into Fun Mode. This is cool, but I found controlling the printer through the app was much more convenient.

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing around with the Mini Link, but I wish that Fuji was able to knock its $129 price down to make it more affordable. Unfourtantly for me, I find $129, plus the cost of the film to be a little expensive for my taste, but if you think you’ll get $129 worth of enjoyment out of a pocket printer like this, it works well and is a lot of fun.