Direct Thermal Printer VS Instant Photo Printer

With the popularity of mini printers, every household now basically have a printer, whether it is a photo printer or a label printer, have become a family necessity.

Family around the world rely on printers every day to print all manner of items, including schedule, receipts, stuff management tags, and more. It’s essential that family understand and choose the right printer for their specific needs. A label printer, for instance, may print some labels quickly but the price of label tape is not cheap enough. Besides, if you are the one who like taking instant photos with polaroid or others, photo paper costs much.

How does portable photo printers work?

To put it simply, a piece of photo paper is made up of many layers, each of which has different chemical elements. When the shutter is pressed, a roller in the printer will run over the photo paper, causing it to produce chemical reactions, thus you can get the photo.

The principle of imaging is complicated to explain, also you can refer to  here.

Because it's all chemical reactions, if you cut open the printed paper, you'll find black liquid coming out. If it touch the your skin, be sure to wash it with water immediately, or it will cause skin stinging. That's why some people say the printed picture is toxic.

What are the advantages of portable photo printers?

For most people, it's nostalgia. The photo paper can be generally preserved for decades, with good texture and a sense of nostalgia. But remember not to swing the photo paper you just printed, it will affect the quality of the photo. 

The downside is that the price of paper is so high that you have to find the right angle before you press the shutter. As I said above, the printed paper may not be friendly to the human body.

What is a thermal printer?

Ever since NCR Corporation developed the earliest thermal paper and Texas Instruments invented the thermal print in the late 1960s, those printers have been widely used in computers, stores, banks, etc. They are light-weight, consume less power and require no ink, so it's easy to make a portable one. 

There are two distinct categories of thermal printers: Direct thermal printers and thermal transfer printers.  Phomemo printer is direct thermal printer, use chemically-treated paper that darkens when heated by a thermal print head. Direct thermal printers do not use separate ink, toner, or ribbon supplies. They are used most commonly to create labels, safety signs, wayfinding markers, barcodes, shipping labels, and other heavily-used items.

What are the advantages of thermal printers? 

Back in 2012, a London consultancy firm called Berg (“the British Experimental Rocket Group”) launched a curious little device that could print out ‘mini-newspapers’ from various online sources which was called“Little Printer”, including pictures, social media messages, news and puzzles. Using a mobile app, users can use their smartphones to set subscriptions and Little Printer will gather the data to create a beautiful mini-newspaper. 

The advantage of a thermal printer is that it is versatile, unlike instant photo printer, which is probably more of a personal preference, and paper refill is very cheap and accessible. 

In addition, paper refill has a lot of options, the preservation of life is optional, there are 5 years, 20 years or even a long time. Although there are fewer color options, but in the future, Phomemo will also launch paper rolls with patterns for more choices! Super looking forward to!