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Photography has always been sold as a way to preserve memories. But for most of us that's probably no longer really true. Photography today is less now about saving memories and more about documenting the moment, moments that float by as we thumb through Instagram or Facebook.
Photos as memories sometimes feels like an outdated concept. This may no longer be the goal of our photography, but it still has a place. And it's still incredibly popular: the instant print market was valued at $950 million last year. Score one for the world of tangible objects.
Fujifilm's [Instax cameras](https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-instant-cameras/) and printers have long dominated the instant print world, but there is a competitor known as "Zink."
Kodak's new Smile Classic vastly improves what Zink prints can produce. Unlike other [Zink cameras we've tested](), The Smile Classic produces larger prints, with a nice border, good tonal range, and richer contrast. These are prints that look good enough to trust with your memories.
### Design Nostalgia
The design of the Smile Classic echos the look and feel of the 1970s Polaroid OneStep, but shaves off some of the bulk to produce a camera that looks great, works with the simplicity of a Polaroid, but fits much more easily in your bag.
The Smile Classic is the third Zink-based product in Kodak's Classic line, and the first hybrid, camera-printer, capable of taking decent photos in its own right, but also able to print any image on your phone. The latter option means you can document the moment and have the print later too.
The power button is on the side of camera. Slide it to the front and the Smile Classic, pops up an viewfinder extension reminiscent of the OneStep's famous viewfinder. The shutter button is on the back of the camera, large and raised enough that it's easy to find by touch. Next to the shutter button there's a small 10 second timer button for group shots.
Like Canon's Ivy Cliq (see our [full review](https://www.wired.com/review/canon-ivy-cliq/)), the Smile Classic keeps things simple. This is point and shoot at it's purest. You don't need to worry about exposure, you don't even need to focus. You just frame the shot, press the shutter and out comes your print.
The camera sports a 27mm f/2.2 fixed-focus lens that captures square, 16-megapixel images. On the side of the camera body there's a USB-A charging port and a MicroSD card slot. That means, if you want to, you can save digital copies of the images you take with the Smile Classic.
While I really like the simplicity of the Smile Classic, it is worth noting the one major drawback -- every image your shoot you print. There's no screen, no preview. That can make the Smile Classic a little more expensive over time since you're printing everything, not just the images you love. This also factors into battery life, which Kodak claims will print 35 images per charge.
### Go Anywhere Printer
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The print you get from the Smile Classic isn't a Polaroid-style print with the puffy edges. Instead, cameras and printers like the Smile Classic are able to produce more traditional prints, like what you'd get from a professional printer (but without the professional quality). Using a technology called [Zink](https://zink.com){: rel=nofollow}, the Smile Classic churns out sticky-backed 3.25-inch x 4.5-inch images with a quarter inch white border.
That's quite a bit larger than all the other Zink cameras and printers we've tested, which all printing smaller, rectangular 2 x 3 images. The larger image of the Smile Classic gives prints more life and the border makes them feel more like a proper photo than an instant print.
That said, Zink isn't the highest quality printing. In fact it's nowhere near the quality of what you can get from printing machines at your local drugstore. But it's in your hand seconds after you press the shutter on the Smile Classic, something your local drugstore will never manage to do.
And I did find the results of the Smile Classic to be the best of any Zink printer I've tested. The tonal range is good, colors render reasonably close to true. The noticeable improvement in the Smile Classic comes at the dark end of the tonal range, a place the Zink printing technology struggles. You still won't get a deep rich black, but to my eye these images are closer. I encountered some strong banding, or rough edges between similar colors. This happens sometimes in scenes like a sunset, where the line between red and orange is speckled rather than smoothly transitioning from one to the next.
The Classic holds ten of the new larger Zink papers, and the refill packs are small enough that you can throw a few in your pocket and you'll hardly notice them.
The Kodak Classic app for iOS and Android turns the Smile Classic into an instant printer. Connect your to the Classic via Bluetooth and you can print any image on your phone. For the sample images above I transfered edited photos from a full-frame DSLR to my phone and then printed them to Zink.
The app has all the standard editing features you'd expect these days, crop, rotate, adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and more. There's also plenty of filters and what Kodak calls "style", the ability to add text, doodles, stickers and borders to your image.
There's also an augmented reality option which allows you to add videos and "face filters". At the time of writing the latter is not yet available, but the video feature embeds a 30-second video clip (with sound). When you print out the image, anyone with the app will be able to view the video by holding their smartphone over the picture.
I still personally prefer the aesthetics of Instax prints, but that comes down to matter of taste -- I like darker, moodier images. That said, I think the Kodak Smile Classic is a great camera and printer. It's has clean design, is dead simple to use and would be my top pick for those who'd prefer more traditional prints. The sticker prints look good enough for most people, and the larger image size gives Zink a welcome look.
*(The [Kodak Smile Classic costs $150 from Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/KODAK-Classic-Digital-Bluetooth-Pictures/dp/B07WHDV12K/){: rel=nofollow}.*
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