HP Sprocket Studio Plus

Jul 04, 2023

Most portable photo printers are smaller than the HP Sprocket Studio Plus ($199.99), but if you want 4-by-6-inch photos, you need a printer that's big enough to handle the paper size. More important, if you want better quality than small Zink-based models offer, you need a different print technology. For today's 4-by-6 photo printers, that usually means dye sub, which makes Zink printer output look lame in comparison. And although the Sprocket Studio Plus falls a little short on speed and features compared with the Canon Selphy CP1500—our current top pick for the 4-by-6 photo printer category—and its price is a little higher, its picture quality holds up nicely.

The Studio Plus is unusual in being one of the few 4-by-6-inch photo printers that works strictly with iOS and Android devices. Competitors like the CP1500 and the Canon Selphy CP1300, which was an earlier top pick, can also print from some combination of memory cards, USB memory, and PCs and Macs, in addition to mobile devices. An HP spokesperson confirmed that this limitation is inherited from the earlier-generation HP Sprocket Studio, which connects using Bluetooth only and is no longer being manufactured. The Studio Plus only uses Bluetooth to initiate a Wi-Fi connection, either to a network or a direct connection to a phone or tablet. In theory, the Wi-Fi support should let you connect to and print from a computer as well, but the printer has no Windows or macOS drivers, so it's impossible in practice.

The printer weighs 2.5 pounds and measures 3.6 by 8.3 by 5.3 inches (HWD) with the paper tray nestled on top of the printer. A lot of effort has clearly gone into the physical design. Rounded corners and a two-tone color scheme—using off-white for the printer and a darker version of the same hue for the tray—give it a stylish look. And although there is nothing actually holding the tray onto the printer, it fits snugly enough so it stayed in place when I turned the printer upside down, yet still lifted off with no real effort. The top of the printer itself is slightly depressed, leaving an edge running all the way around, which makes it a handy place to neatly pile photos as they finish printing. However, no carrying case is included, so although the Sprocket Studio Plus is small enough to count as portable, you'll have to supply your own bag to carry it in.

To set up for printing, you slide open a moveable piece on the tray that acts as a dust cover, and load up to 18 sheets of photo paper. You can then open a panel on the front, which is one of the long sides, to reveal a power button, status lights, and a slot for the tray. There's also a panel on the right that opens to let you load the ribbon cartridge. To finish up, simply slide the ribbon in all the way, close the right side panel, and slide the tray in till it clicks, leaving most of the tray sitting in front of the printer. Then connect the power cable, and make sure there's about 5 inches of free space behind the printer.

As is standard for 4-by-6-inch dye sub printers, the paper has to move forward and backward several times when printing, with nearly the full page sticking out of the printer twice on each pass—once in front and once in back. The ribbon, or dye roll, has four panels in this case: cyan, magenta, yellow, and a clear protective coat. Each of the passes is part of the thermal dye transfer process, which uses heat to transfer one layer of color from the dye roll, as you can see each time it partially exits from the front slot on the first three passes. On the fourth, the printer lays down the protective coating.

The Sprocket Studio Plus comes with enough paper and a long enough ribbon for eight photos. Additional supplies come in packs, with two ribbons that print 54 photos each, and six packs of 18 sheets of photo paper, the maximum the tray can accept at once. Using the prices currently listed on the Sprocket Printers website, the cost per photo works out to 43.5 cents (about 8 cents cheaper than at the list prices for the materials.)

To print, you need to download the HP Sprocket app to your Android or iOS mobile device. I found it a little confusing to set up—and harder than setting it up to print via Bluetooth to other HP Sprocket printers— largely because the app guided me though two separate connection steps. It first took me to the Android Wi-Fi setup utility to connect, which worked without problems, then surprised me with a second connection step in the app itself, which again searched for the printer to connect to. The first time I tried this, the second step took so long that I thought something had gone wrong. I then reset the printer, went through the process again, and timed it. The app took about 12 minutes to complete the connection process, a frustratingly long time to wait. An HP representative said he had never seen this problem before and was unable to replicate it. In any case, it was a one-time issue. Once I had the connection established the first time, my phone quickly connected and let me print whenever I turned on the printer.

Once you get the app working, it's easy to use for basic tasks, including finding photos in an Android device's Gallery and printing them. It's also packed with useful features. You can take a picture from within the app; create collages of two or four pictures; edit photos to adjust brightness and contrast; add text, frames, or stamps; and more. You can also view and print photos from your Instagram, Facebook, and Google accounts. On my first introduction to the app (with a different printer), I found the help feature lacked important information. But the Sprocket Printers website includes FAQs and instructions to fill in the gaps.

HP Sprocket claims the printer can print a 4-by-6-inch photo in 90 seconds. In my tests, printing from a Samsung Galaxy S20FE, I timed it at an average of 121 seconds, and range of 111 to 137 seconds, about the same speed we saw from the HP Sprocket Studio. Most people will consider the wait acceptable, but it's about twice as long as the Canon CP1300's print time of 56 to 62 seconds, depending on the source, and three times as long as the Canon CP1500's average, at 38 seconds per photo.

As expected for a dye sub printer, the output is worth waiting for. It's not in the same league as you'd get from a high-end inkjet aimed at professional photographers, but it's easily a match for drugstore-quality prints, with borderless printing, nicely saturated color, and only a slight loss of fine detail.

If you're considering the HP Sprocket Studio Plus, be sure that a phone or tablet connection is all you need. Both the Canon CP1300 and CP1500 can print from a wider variety of sources than just mobile devices, including Windows computers and Macs. They also offer faster print speeds, and, at this writing at least, a lower cost per photo. That said, if what you need is a printer for 4-by-6-inch photos to free the memories trapped in your social accounts via your phone or tablet, the HP Sprocket Studio Plus can certainly do the job.