Bolle BP-10 iPhone photo printer

Photographs from your mobile without AirPrint

Fitting and replacing the consumables and print media is a single-step operation because the card and colour thermal dye films are combined into one dual-roll cartridge. This is loaded into the side of the printer behind a removable door (at last, something to snap), and that’s it: you’re ready to go.

Whenever your iPhone is sitting in the BP-10’s dock, it is being recharged

When a photo is being printed, it begins to emerge from the output slot at the front, gets sucked back inside for the next dye colour, emerges, goes back inside and so on four times until the job is done. On the final pass, the card is cut and delivered onto your tabletop (or the floor if you positioned the BP-10 at the edge of the table).

The results are really quite good indeed, with bright, saturated colour and no apparent noise, grain or dither. Several shots I thought were pretty duff on my iPhone came out beautifully as 6x4in prints from the DP-10.

On the down side, it is a noisy printer in operation. It wouldn’t bother anyone during a party but it will annoy the family if you start printing in the living room while they’re watching TV. Another minor irritation is that the BP-10 seems to keep consuming 3.5W from the mains even when it’s switched off.

Remember, too, that the iPhone dock connector is purely for connecting your phone to the printer: there is no further connection to a computer, so it does not double-up as a dock for iTunes synching. Still, it’s good to know that the phone will not be running flat while printing off dozens of shots throughout a children’s birthday party.