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While a printer like this is designed primarily for its fun on-demand element, the photos are probably best viewed in pubs and clubs where the lights are low. The prints show an annoying lack of detail, give faces a generally blotchy look and include the occasional white line where it appears the print head has misfired.

Compared with even a 15 x 10cm print there's a lot of fine detail missing so, for example, in one of our tests images (see page 5) which includes a palm tree, the fronds look ragged, making the tree look noticeably poorly.

But, hey, the prints have sticky backs. Peel off the backing paper and you can stick them on walls, furniture or your friends' backs; the ideal tool for low-level embarrassment.

All you need to buy to run the PoGo is paper, and 30 sheets cost around £7, if you live near a branch of John Lewis. Each 30-sheet pack contains three sachets of 10 sheets, as the printer can only take this many, and a small blue under-sheet with a barcode printed on it informs the printer you've loaded new paper. A cost of 23.15p per 3 x 2in print isn't cheap, though Polaroid has always charged extra for the convenience of its instant photo technologies.

Verdict

While there's no doubt that the PoGo printer is extremely convenient and easy-to-use, the ZINK technology is not at a stage where you're going to see good images. Give it some more development and another couple of generations and it might get somewhere near the standard of the old Polaroid instant photos.

ZINK licenses its technology to Polaroid, but this isn't an exclusive licence and other manufacturers are known to be working on cameras and laptops with built-in ZINK-based printers. We'd like to see larger prints, at least up to the size of old Polaroid instant prints, and fervently hope the next generation of the print technology will offer greater detail in the images it produced.

However, if you want a printer that's immediately fun as a talking point, and one that produces expensive, business card-sized prints you can stick on your friends, the PoGo is ideal.

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