Hands On: Fuji's Instax Pal Earns Points for Cuteness

pcmag.com:

You've got to hand it to Fujifilm for variety. Just a week after dropping details on the 100MP GFX100 II for professional photographers, it's back with the Instax Pal, a tiny camera aimed at an entirely different market: teenagers.

If the size, about the same volume as an earbud charging case, didn't clue you in, the fact that it looks like a cartoon mouse, complete with a tail, should. And while it may be a little too twee for the the 13-and-up audience Fuji tells us the camera is meant for, parents may see the logic in getting one for older elementary and middle schoolers who aren't ready for their own smartphone.

Cameras come in all shapes and sizes, but I'll admit I'd not seen one quite like the Instax Pal before. It's a small, all-plastic digital with rounded edges. The strap sticks out to the side, it's too narrow for an adult wrist, but I could see it working for early elementary students. The lens is prominent, and there are only two buttons—power on the top and the shutter release on the rear.

Fuji isn't selling the Pal on its own. The Instax portion comes in the form of an existing product, the Mini Link 2 printer we reviewed last year. The Mini Link takes any picture from your smartphone and prints it onto Instax Mini film. Because Mini is a chemical film format, not an inkjet, thermal, or dye sublimation process, its prints look more like instant photos and, well, less like digital snapshots. You can still buy the printer separately for around $100, while the bundle with the Pal doubles the price to $199.95.

The Pal camera works with either a smartphone app, Instax Pal to send photos to an Android or iPhone for pre-print editing, or in a mode where it can send photos directly to the printer. I think more