Fujifilm launches instax Link WIDE 2 smartphone printer

Fujifilm announced the instax Link WIDE 2 today, September 15, extending its smartphone-printer range with a new generation aimed at users who want physical prints directly from mobile photographs. The product continues the company's strategy of connecting instant photography with smartphones rather than treating the two as competing formats. A dedicated mobile application handles image selection and editing before sending photographs wirelessly to the printer.

Wide-format instant prints provide substantially more physical image area than the miniature prints associated with many pocket printers, making the device particularly suitable for group photographs, travel images and creative layouts. Smartphone cameras have effectively replaced compact cameras for everyday photography, but Fujifilm has successfully built a business around giving those digital images a physical endpoint.

The Link WIDE 2 therefore sits in an interesting ecosystem niche: the phone remains the camera and editing platform, while dedicated hardware supplies the tactile output that a screen cannot reproduce.