Forget digital photo frames — Polaroid’s unique photo printer with a built-in frame is perfect for analog fans

• Polaroid's latest portable printer produces 3x3 prints through an app
• The device's unique built-in frame can house your prints
• It costs $119.99 / £99.99 and joins 2x3 and 4x6 versions in the Hi-Print range

Like Instax, Polaroid makes some of the best instant cameras, but today it revealed a different kind of product for instant photography fans — the Hi-Print 3x3 portable printer.

It's a unique rival to the Instax Mini Link series of portable printers — a smart alternative to dedicated instant cameras — printing onto Polaroid's Hi-Print 3x3 paper, and with a trick up its sleeve: it doubles up as a photo frame.

Printers can be pretty ugly, but the Hi-Print 3x3 is an altogether stylish alternative you'll want to display, with a slick all-white design that is essentially customizable by housing one of your smartphone prints, selected and edited from your phone's gallery / camera roll through Polaroid's free app (for iOS and Android).

The Polaroid Hi-Print 3x3 portable printer costs $119.99 / £99.99 (Australia pricing and availability TBC) and comes with a cartridge of 10 sheets for printing to get you started — a competitive price compared to Instax Mini Link alternatives.

A different kind of photo frame

I've been reviewing the best instant cameras and the best digital photo frames for years, and the new Polaroid Hi-Print 3x3 is, in a way, a unique hybrid of the two.

Unlike a dedicated analog instant camera, you get the freedom of choosing which images you'd like to print from your smartphone through the Polaroid app, with the option to add templates and stickers should you wish.

And this is not just a portable printer, but a frame too — those prints can snap onto the device within its lift-up frame.

Polaroid already has the Hi-Print 4x6 photo printer in its lineup, and an additional new Hi-Print 2x3 printer, which will easily fit into a clutch bag, but it's the new 3x3 version with its built-in frame that truly stands out to me.

Having never used a Polaroid Hi-Print device, I can't speak of the quality of the prints produced by the different paper types versus traditional Polaroid cameras such as the I-2, the Flip, or the Go 2, but I'm certainly interested in the 3x3 portable printer and hope to have a play with it soon.

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