Fujifilm Instax Mini LiPlay Review: A Cam and Printer In One | WIRED

Despite the naysayers, print film refuses to die. Kodak resurrected one of it’s most popular films, Ektachrome, and Fujifilm has announced it will bring back Acros 100, a popular black-and-white film. It’s not just pros and artists that crave real-world prints though; instant-print cameras and printers have been piling up on our desk all year. Smaller Zink cameras and printers are among them, and they’re nipping at Fujifilm’s heels.

The Instax Mini LiPlay is Fujifilm’s attempt to up its instant-photo game. Using the same credit-card-sized Instax film as previous releases, like our favorite Instax, the Mini 90, the LiPlay offers a more pocketable form factor.

It also has a glass lens and is an impressive stand-alone mini printer. With an app, you can print photos from your smartphone. The much-touted ability to embed audio in your images using a QR code is less impressive, but I’ll get to that later.

It’s a Camera

The LiPlay is a hybrid. Unlike most other Instax cameras, you can review your images on an LCD screen and decide whether or not to print them. This puts an end to wasting film on images where someone’s eyes are closed. This alone could mean a considerable long-term savings over direct-to-print models like the Mini 90.

That said, my favorite feature of the LCD isn’t the ability to review so much as the animation that happens when you print: It scrolls your image up off the screen at almost exactly the same speed the actual print emerges from the camera. It’s a nice touch that makes that digital-to-real-world transition more immediate and fun.

The images the LiPlay printed out were impressively sharp, better than the results I got from the Mini 90. The LiPlay lacks some of the extra features found on Fujifilm’s other Instax models. For example, there’s no double exposure or close-up mode. Thankfully, there’s still a way to set exposure compensation. Instax prints have a tendency to crush blacks and wash out highlights, so I often use exposure compensation to lighten shadows or darken highlights, depending on the scene I’m shooting.

The rounded body of the LiPlay is easy to hold and reasonably pocketable. It comes in black, white, and rose gold.

The design is clean and simple. There’s a power button on the side of the camera, and next to it are three buttons that control which visual effects (if any) are applied to the image. The options range from hearts to antlers to a dozen or so other overlays.

Fujifilm

There’s also a Back button, Review button, and Print button beside the LCD screen on the back. A Set button inside a typical camera 4-way direction wheel rounds out the controls on the back. The wheel lets you navigate the menus to turn Bluetooth on and off, control various print settings, and toggle other settings.

In front is a shutter release along with a selfie mirror, AF lamp, and the button to record audio.

It’s an Audio Recorder (Sort of)

Yes, the Instax Mini LiPlay records audio, which at first brush sounds really cool, conjuring up visions of photos out of Harry Potter. Unfortunately, in practice it involves scanning QR codes and installing smartphone apps.

You take an image, record up to 10 seconds of audio, and then print the image with a QR code. You then give that image to someone else, and they can scan the code and listen to your message. The process works, but it’s a cumbersome way add sound to prints.

The new app doesn’t just play QR code audio; it also controls the LiPlay. You can set the effects for the three shortcut buttons and trigger the shutter for group photos, complete with a live view.