An early Christmas present for my girl
As a blogger I’m lucky enough to be offered products to review every now and again. Some of these I turn down without a moment’s hesitation – I don’t need nappies and I don’t want to try a different moisturizer! Others don’t fit with the things I want to focus on here – they are not ‘crafty’ enough somehow. And sometimes I just simply don’t have time.
The folks behind Pringo were keen, and I can see how this could be a fabulous tool for a scrapbooker or paper crafter, as well as just being plain cool to have in your handbag. So I suggested that my 10-year-old girl, Little Miss, could be the reviewer for this one. Boy, was she excited!
What is it?
The Pringo is a small portable printer that connects via wifi to your Apple or Android device. You download a free app to your device which lets you edit your photos and add all kinds of cool extras before you print. My favourite is the silver decorative borders but you can also adjust the photos with filters, add basic borders, and add stamps and other embellishments. The printer holds 10 sheets of special paper and the print cartridge, plus a rechargeable battery. The whole unit is only 14.5cm x 9.5cm (bigger than an iPhone but smaller than an iPad Mini) and about 2cm thick. Printing takes only a couple of minutes and the quality is excellent. The prints are 54mm x 86mm – tiny enough to slip into your wallet or add to your diary.
To start using the app you must set up a free account at the Pringo website. If you’re not in Australia you cold purchase your Pringo there too. For Australian customers, you can purchase at the Australian site below for $169. Extra paper come in sets of 3o for $$13.99 or 100 for $44.99. The papers come with ink cartridges as well – 1 cartridge for every 10 papers.
“This is awesome!”
Little Miss spent ages taking photos and playing with the app on her iPod. She says she liked how you could take the photo then you could play with it and create collages. She especially loved the snow globe feature, which added sprinkles of ‘snow’ when you shook the device. She liked adding the borders too, and even played with creating her own business cards.
She commented that it was perfect for when you were on the go – we’re taking it with us to a playdate today! – and would be suitable for anyone from 8 years of age.
She didn’t like that the picture goes in and out of the printer “like 5 times!” – that was annoying, although it was kind of interesting to see it adding the colours in layers to the picture. She thought it was slow going in and out like that to print – she just wanted her picture done!
Just be careful
When I started playing with the Pringo app, I noticed that when you go to print your picture, there is a line at the top of the page saying “Activate Pringo backup service?” and the slider below is “ON” by default each time.
“Where does it backup to?”, I wondered.
Turns out it backs up to their website to a page called “My Album”. You can choose on that page whether you album is Public or Hidden. It also pulls your location from your device’s location settings. As a mum who is letting her child use this, I would strongly suggest you make your album private and turn off location settings.
Back on your device, you can go into settings for the app by clicking the ‘gear’ icon on the front page. From there choose the option for “Pringo Backup Setting” where you can slide the switch to turn OFF the backup to the online album.
BUT REMEMBER: Every single time you go to print a photo, the slider to activate the backup again is ON by default so you must turn it OFF again.
In addition the message to turn on your location settings will keep popping up as you use the app. I don;t have location settings turned on for any apps on my phone and I’m happy to ignore this each time it pops up, but you may be comfortable turning yours on.
Last Word
Love it! It will get lots of use here across the holidays and especially for Christmas.
More info:
Australian Pringo Site: http://apedistribution.com.au/
Pringo Website – Login and Albums: http://pringo.hiti.com/index/home/
