We've been able to put the printer to use weekly, printing over 2,000 prints so far and here's what we've noted so far:
I did forget it's still an inkjet and removed the original cartridge installed and installed a new one to show an attendant how to do so and the old one became unusable after a few weeks. In speaking with Primera, we were able to get it working using a damp paper towel to clean off the dried ink. They also informed me that they sell ink cartridge "garages" now so that you can "park" an opened cartridge to keep this from happening.
I tried using the adhesive photo strips and we LOVE them - for TWO reasons:
1. The adhesive sticks to the back good so if the client doesn't want to use it, it doesn't just come off and it makes the strip feel nice and thick.
2. No more double sided tape or glue sticks or craft dots or any of that stuff - peel the back and stick it in the memory book
My attendants now complain if they don't have the adhesive paper at weddings.
My only complaint is the adhesive media is luster and not glossy - but that's just personal preference - clients didn't even seem to notice.
I tried multiple times to get the prints to smudge - removing directly from the printer, pouring soda water on it and rubbing and still couldn't get it to smudge.
Now that the booth has been used across 8 events I've learned a few things. The ink cartridge seems to be a 3:2 ratio to paper (meaning 3 ink cartridges got us through 2 rolls of paper) and the strip content affects this greatly. We did an old west event with Sepia prints and blew through a cartridge before we got through half a roll (the sepia was a very dark print).
Overall - it seems like our prints are costing around 19 cents each (factoring in paper and ink costs together). It works out to about $15-$20 more per event so you'll need to consider how much convenience is worth to you if you decide to go this route. Or, charge the event $100 more to print everything as a sticker. It definitely can separate your business from others just in the fact that you can offer it. Business clients might not even flinch at an extra charge like this.
I began sending the printer with each of my attendants to get their initial thoughts and their responses were:
The printer is very quiet The printer is faster than the others
The printer is super light
Not throwing away a stack of extra prints at the end of the night is wonderful since we can print a single 2x6 print (I used to keep extras for samples but we have WAY too many samples. LOL)
We did run into a few areas of concern and things we needed to learn that differed from a typical dye-sub printer. This doesn't mean bad - just different or something that needs to be thought about:
The adhesive prints seem to curl a bit after printing
We did an old west event with Sepia prints and blew through a cartridge before we got through half a roll (the sepia was a very dark print).
The print cost estimator is a nice tool - however, it simply tells you how much a particular print costs without taking into consideration the size of the print so you could see a panoramic print costing over 50 cents and right below it a 2x6 that cost 6 cents. Do the average and you get 28 cents per print (we do a majority of 2x6 strips and 4x6 from time to time). So you have a difficult time comparing apples to apples when trying to compare costs next to a dye sub printer. Add in the fact that the estimator doesn't include paper cost so you have to do a little more than just look at the cost estimator.
I will say support has been excellent and response has been quick. When we ran into an odd issue and notified Primera, a new Firmware update came out that fixed the issue. (we had a few chip issues and such that the update seemed to fix right up)