Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Review

Introduction

Ease of Use

Whereas 2019’s Instax Mini LiPlay sported a fun design designed to be attractive to a younger audience, the new Instax Mini Evo is a much more serious affair.

The Instax Mini Evo is a more vintage looking camera than the “fun” LiPlay, which has a much more modern design that’s available in three different colours. By contrast the Mini Evo is only available in black with silver mirror accents.

It mimics the look of classic film cameras pretty well, with the faux leatherette coating both looking genuine from afar and also making it easier to grip than the smooth, shiny surface on the LiPlay. The textured coating is made from plastic, though, not true leather.

The Mini Evo is one of the smallest instant cameras in the Instax range, measuring 87 mm x 122.9 mm x 36mm and weighing 285g without batteries, strap, and film, making it more transportable than many of the other cameras in the brand’s back-catalogue. It’s not quite pocket-friendly though, so you will need a small bag to store it in.

Designed to be as user-friendly as possible, learning how to use the Instax Mini Evo isn’t too complicated.

Size-wise, the Instax Mini Evo fits in the hand comfortably enough – for reference, I have large hands. It has a much more angular design than the smooth cruves of the LiPlay, and as mentioned above it also has a usefully textured surface.

The camera is of course made entirely from plastic, so ideally you won’t ever drop it (!), but it is robust enough to survive a small drop if you do.

We still found ourselves needing to concentrate a little to avoid dropping the Instax Mini Evo, though, and certainly appreciated the supplied wrist strap as a back up.

The camera is primarily designed to be used in portrait-format orientation, so that when the Instax prints are revealed, the larger part of the frame will be at the bottom.

You can choose to ignore this and shoot in landscape orientation if you prefer, but the text on the camera will be the “correct” way up only when holding the Mini Evo in the portrait orientation.

On the front of the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo, you’ll find the fixed focal length, 28mm, F2.0 lens.

It’s surrounded by a circular lens dial which is used to cycle through the 10 different lens effects – Normal, Vignette, Soft Focus, Blur, Fisheye, Colour Shift, Light Leak, Mirror, Double Exposure, and Half-frame.

These can be combined with the 10 different film effects – Normal, Vivid, Pale, Canvas, Monochrome, Sepia, Yellow, Red, Blue, and Retro – which are selected via a dedicated click dial on top of the camera, to create 100 possible creative combinations in total.

There’s also a small mirror which you can use to help you accurately line up selfies, an AF assist lamp and the flash unit, which can be switched on or off from the menu.

A shutter release button is also found on the front of the Instax Mini Evo, which feels slightly strange in use for those who are used to finding buttons in the more traditional place.

There is another shutter button on top of the camera, but as the Instax Mini Evo does everything that it can to make you shoot in portrait mode, you’ll find yourself using the front shutter release most of the time.

You’ll also find the On/Off power switch at the lower-left corner of the front of the camera., a slightly odd position that again makes more sense when shooting in portrait rather than landscape mode.

On the bottom of the Instax Mini Evo is a hidden slot for inserting a microSD memory card. The Mini Evo comes with an inbuilt memory which can store approximately 45 images, while up to 850 images can be stored per 1GB of memory on a Micro SD card – so it’s well worth investing in one of those unless you want to frequently delete your images.

Also at the bottom of the Fuji Instax Mini Evo, alongside the card slot, is a micro USB port, which you can use to charge up the camera. The flash on the front of the camera will light up to let you know it’s charging, switching off when it’s complete. There’s also a factory-reset button in the same compartment..

Flipping to the back of the Instax Mini Evo and you’ll see that again it’s quite a simple set-up here. There’s a 3-inch 460k-dot LCD screen, which is larger and higher resolution than the 2.7-inch, 230K screen on the LiPlay.

The LCD screen ablso doubles up as the screen door for the film slot. Slide across a switch to open the film door when you want to insert a new pack of Instax film. The switch on our review sample was annoyingly sticky, though, often not releasing the door without some swearing, so make sure to check yours when you buy it.

Instax film is incredibly simple to use – all you need to do is line up the small yellow line on the Instax film with the same yellow line on the camera and close the door when it’s in place. Be careful not to accidentally open the film door once you start using the film though, as you’ll risk exposing and ruining the film.

Before you get started and whenever you insert a new film cartridge, you’ll need to take a single shot to eject the safety sheet from the cartridge, which you can then throw away.

When the Instax Mini Evo is on, you’ll see some helpful information on the LCD screen. A dotted display at the bottom of the screen shows how many prints you’ve got left in your film pack. You’ll see the navigation guide displayed on the screen, which is controlled by a four way navigational dial just underneath it.

Pressing the up and down keys activates the digital zoom, while the left and right keys toggle between exposure compensation, self-timer, flash, macro (the closest focus distance is 10cm when set to the macro mode) and white balance settings.

As well as the navipad, underneath the screen, there’s a Menu/OK button, a Back button, a Playback button and a Favorites button.

The main menu features a number of different settings which you can change, including face detection, switching the AF illuminator on or off (you might wish to switch it off if you’re trying to shoot somewhere discreetly), print settings, bluetooth settings, date and time and so on.

If you press the playback button, you’ll be able to scroll through the images you’ve taken and also digitally crop them using the navipad buttons.

When you’re ready to print one of your shots, pull the delightfully retro Print lever on top of the camera – sure, the same thing could have been achieved with a simple button, but where’s the fun in that?!

Also located on top of the camera is an accessory cold shoe which can be used to attach third-party accessories, like continuous LED lights, and a tiny unmakred button resets the lens and film effects back to the default normal/normal modes.

To charge to its full capacity can take up to three hours, but once it is charged, the camera is able to print up to 100 images from a single charge. Of course, if you’re using it to take pictures as well, the power will run out sooner.

The Instax Mini Evo is designed to work with a companion smartphone app, which is available to download for free. You can connect to the Mini Evo via Bluetooth, and for the most part it connects quickly and seems to remain stable once the initial connection and setup has been completed.

From the app you can perform a number of useful functions, including taking remote control of the camera (useful for selfies and group shots).

One important limitation to be aware of is that the Mini Evo only saves images that you’ve actually printed into the app, not every photo that you’ve taken – so if you’ve filled up the built-in memory with 45 images, but only printed 10 of them, only those 10 will be saved in the app.

We’ve no real idea why this limitation exists, and hope that Fuji fix it in a future firmware upgrade. Until then you can work around it by copying the images from the built-in memory onto a memory card, or preferably by recording images to a microSD card and transferring them from that to another device, neither of which are as convenient.

One of the most useful app functions is the “direct print” option, which allows you to print any image which you have stored on your phone. This effectively turns the Mini Evo into a portable Instax Mini printer, and is a great way to use to print better photos than the onboard camera is capable of capturing.

Once an image has been printed out, you’ll need to allow some time for the Instax film to develop – in other words, don’t be alarmed when it pops out completely white. After a few minutes, the colours should have fully rendered.

The mini Evo creates the highest-ever quality instax instant prints to date, printing at 600 dpi when printed directly from the camera.

The print slot is found on the left-hand side of the Instax Mini Evo (when viewed from the rear), so make sure it is unobstructed when you press the print button. A nice quirk is that the camera display will show a graphic of the print coming out from the screen.

Completing the external controls are a 1/4″ tripod socket, which as with most of the user interface is optimally positioned for when the Instax Mini Evo is in portrait mode.

Image Quality

Instax printing is never about superb image quality, but rather the fun and quirky aspect of printing out your shots on instant film. Some Instax cameras are analogue, but one of the big benefits of using the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo’s digital camera is that you can preview your shots before printing them – so you don’t accidentally print out a dud and waste precious film.

Put bluntly, the onboard camera on the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo is nothing to write home about. It’s almost like using a camera from 10-15 years ago, boasting a low resolution and lacking detail.

In bright conditions, the shots that it can produce are fine for the small size of an Instax print, though, even taking into account the increased 600dpi resolution that the Instax Mini Evo prints at. In darker conditions, the camera struggles to focus (even with the AF assist light switched on), and using the flash is a definite requirement, too.

It’s best to view the digital versions of the photos as just a guide to let you know what you should bother to print. They don’t stand up on their own when viewed on a computer screen, and certainly aren’t ones you’re likely to want to keep or use for any other purpose than for printing in the small Instax size.

As for the prints themselves, they’re nicely saturated and give a good impression of detail thanks to their small size. They’re fun enough for souvenirs and keepsakes, particularly if you use the camera at a special event such as a party, special trip or a wedding and so on.

It’s also something you might consider a good present for children, or anybody who might not be in possession of even the most basic smartphone, which in 2022 is likely to surpass the image quality of the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo’s camera.

The good news is that you can use the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo as a printer, as well as a camera. That means that in theory you could completely ignore the camera aspect and use the device to print much better photos from your smartphone, or even dedicated camera.

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo camera, which were all taken using the 4.9 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Product Images

Conclusion

The Instax Mini Evo is the latest and best hybrid instant camera that Fujifilm have ever released, successfully combining old and new, vintage and modern to create an easy-to-use, well designed and above all fun all-in-one Instax camera and printer.

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo from around the web.

Specifications

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