HP’s Sprocket is a nifty little printer that doesn’t need ink

HP’s tiny Sprocket printer made an appearance at this year’s CES, where it looked just as much fun as any camera we might have seen.

The Sprocket is two inches wide and three inches long, with a premium model that’s slightly larger. It also comes packaged in a 2-in-1 camera, but works with anything Bluetooth-enabled. It works via ZINK technology.

ZINK printers aren’t new by any stretch of the imagination. ZINK (short for “Zero Ink”) is a Polaroid offshoot that’s been around since roughly the late Cretaceous. It operates without ink, using heat and special paper to print photos. We even recommended a ZINK Polaroid 2-in-1 camera in the simpler time of 2015.

The HP Sprocket, which retails for about $129, is just one of many ZINK-powered printers out there, but it looks like one of the most convenient and useful we’ve seen, given its size and the fact the printed photos don’t need to dry before you can touch them.

While the majority of images these days are digital, there’ll always be room for physical prints. Not to mention it could save you money on ink. The ink in my rather pedestrian printer sets me back $43, while the thermal paper required for the Sprocket is $20 for 40 sheets.

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