Canon – SELPHY Square QX10 Wireless Photo Printer – White

The Canon Selphy QX10 is a compact mobile printer that produces 2.7” x 2.7” “polaroid-esque” print. It’s internal battery lets you print on the go from your mobile device using the Canon Selphy Photo Layout App (iOS and Android). I have a Polaroid camera that I like to use every so often, so the Selphy printer is a nice little alternative. It not a large device – about 2 pounds and just smaller than an old Sony Discman that we all (30+ crowd) carried around as kids.
Starting off the Selphy uses a special type of paper and ink. This isn’t like other portable printers that were the zero ink variety, but a process called dye-sub (heat transfer printing). This is a process used in full size photo printers as an alternative to inkjet, and its generally known for its reliability and quality. So back to the special paper and ink – the printer comes with a sample ink cartridge and 3 sheets of printer stock. I ordered the XS-20L paper pack, which came with an ink cartridge and 20 sheets of photo stock from Best Buy for 15 bucks. This works out to $0.75/print before you factor in the cost of the printer. Not wildly expensive, but you pay premium for getting your pics instantly. So far I have printed 13 pictures, so I have a decent idea of what I’m doing.
Setup with the Selphy was…interesting. The printer connects via Wi-Fi direct, not Bluetooth. However, the printer doesn’t have an interface, but rather just a power button. This is where the app comes in. To pair/connect your phone to the printer you need to scan the QR code on the printer with the app. Once its connected you are good to go, or you should be. I ran into problems getting my phone to connect. I have an LG V40 running Android 10. I tried connect 7 or 8 times to no avail. I had my GF try to connect her Samsung Galaxy S9+ running Android 10, and she connected straight away. I was confused, so I started toggling settings to get my phone to connect. I found that my Wi-Fi radio has to be turned off for my phone to pick up the printer. The app notifies you that your Wi-Fi is off, and that it needs to turn it on to connect, which it then does. Weird. So if you have problems connecting to the printer then I suggest turning off your Wi-Fi. Loading the paper is easy – open the bottom compartment and load the paper with the backing facing up (a little diagram inside shows this as well). Loading the ink cartridge requires you to pop open the side hatch and slide it in until it clicks. The cartridge can only go in one way, so you can get it backwards. The manual mentions the need to tighten the ink cartridge sheet if it is loose/sagging before inserting into the printer. My 2 cartridges (the sample and the one I bought) were both fine, but to tighten reminds me of winding old cassette tapes.
Once connected you get into the photo collage app and you can select pictures to print, create layouts, add filters, borders, etc. I printed pictures that I took with my front facing camera, rear camera, and even my mirrorless camera to see if there were any differences in print quality. My mirrorless camera is a Canon EOS M6 Mark II, and I have the Canon Camera Connect app to transfer pictures directly from the camera to my phone without any compression. I was hoping there would be a way for me to connect the M6 to the Selphy directly, but to no avail. I saw a youtuber pull it off with the M6 and the Selphy CP1300, but only because the CP1300 does not rely on an app to facilitate the connection. I was a little disappointed in this missing connectivity, but its not a dealbreaker or even a knock on the product.
The way the Selphy prints is pretty interesting. It passes the paper in and out several times while making the print. It lays down a single color with each pass and follows CMYK colors. First pass is yellow, then magenta, then cyan, and the last pass is black (hard to tell on this one), and the protective overlay. In the collage app you can add overlay effects that show up with that final pass – they are somewhat hard to see so I don’t really use them. Each print takes about a minute, so you don’t have to wait too long. I did find, however, that each time I went to print I would run into connection errors again. As long as I toggled off my Wi-Fi before printing I was fine. I should mention I did all my printing while I was at home, so maybe this won’t be an issue for me if I am out and about and sitting on a mobile data connection. Either way, it bugs me and it only affects my phone and not my GF’s.
Print quality was pretty good. Like I said I tried 3 different sources for the prints to see if the quality of the print was impacted. Honestly, I really couldn’t tell the difference. The picture that came out the best was actually taken from my front facing camera (8MP) which has the lowest resolution of the 3 (rear camera – 16MP, M6 Mark II – 32.5MP). The prints from my front camera appeared a bit sharper and brighter while the images from the other 2 sources looked softer and smoothed out – making them look a bit dull. This may be due to operator error, but I made 13 prints and the results were consistent depending on the source. The 2 front facing pics I had were the least smoothed, so they looked crisp. The higher res sources just had a lot more processing/compression done to them to print – I guess.
Using the printer was pretty easy and it worked pretty well. However, the app still needs work. It’s not super well laid out, the settings were lacking, and the photo browser was slow to show thumbnails. My main critique is picture positioning – there is none. The app doesn’t let you move the focus around on the pic so if you want to re-center or crop something out – no luck. You need to do all of those edits prior to getting into the app. The other thing about the app I didn’t like was it never showed the picture at a good resolution. I selected a high res pic, and the app showed it looking very compressed and fuzzy. Made me think my pic was messed up or that’s how it would print – either way it threw me off and made me unsure if my print would turn out OK. I think you are better off making all edits and adding text or whatever in other apps, saving the pic, and then going into the Selphy app to print.
Overall am I happy with the printer? Yeah I’d say so. It’s a niche little item that I think would be fun to have around at parties (in a post COVID world that is), outings, etc. Its not going to replace a full size photo printer or ordering prints. My GF likes to do a pin up photo collage that she regularly updates, so she really likes it. If you are into Polaroid shots already, then this is right up your alley. It delivers that same feel, but with a much higher quality. The paper is a little hard to come by (Best Buy is currently sold out), but once the printer has been out longer the paper should become more readily available. The app certainly needs work, and I’d be surprised if I was the only one with the connectivity issues.

I have always missed the days of old where I could print out my pictures instantly. However with this product not only am I able to quickly print out the pictures I just took, they come out in great quality! I love how light weight this product is along with it using a rechargeable battery. The setup was easy and the print outs came quick. Unfortunately the cost of the photo paper is very high however I am sure it will decrease in prices once this is out for a while. Overall this is a great product that is made well and enjoyable to use!

I didn’t know I needed a portable printer to reinvigorate my passion for capturing memories and sharing it with family/friends!
It’s not the most compact printer but because of the quality of photos it prints I would prefer to carry this with me wherever I go.
I started with pics of the pups of course. They are my number one models and I have to have photos to show off to friends. I immediately printed two and put them in my planner at work so I can see my Frenchie everyday.
Set up is easy, open the printer, put in the ink cassette and paper, download the application and pair your devices.
It’s just that simple. I’ve got a big team at work and they are silly so we’ve used the printer to make a cork board of team bonding photos! It’s been a hit!
With the holidays coming around I hope that Canon adds more features to the app with frames and stamps. This printer has a lot of great potential!

I come from a time when photos were captured on film and you had no idea what your image was going to look like until you get the film developed, which sometimes took 7 days for processing. I remember in my college days (20 years ago now) when we were still making scrapbooks with printed photographs. When smartphones became commonplace, we started seeing photos transition to the digital realm instead of the paper-based one. So what happens when you want to print your memories out to share? Do you go to a drugstore every time? What if you could just print the photos out at home? That’s what the Canon Selphy Square QX10 Wireless Photo Printer can do for you.
The printer comes in a Canon-branded box and is well-identified for the consumer. The unit comes with a multilingual user manual, Micro USB charging cable, a starter pack of photo paper, and the starter ink cartridge. Before I even set-up the printer, I found things I would upgrade immediately — the charging cable and the starting kit. The charging cable is Micro USB, which in my mind is ‘old technology’. It doesn’t seem very forward-thinking of Canon to release a new product with this older type of charging cable. Is it more cost-effective? Probably – but it’s not future-proof. The other issue I have is that the manual calls out using a wall adapter to charge the printer, but they don’t include one.
The other issue I had out of the box was the miniature starter set of paper and ink. The starter ink cartridge is only enough ink to cover the 3 sheets of paper included in the starter kit. According to the specs of the device, the printer can hold up to 10 sheets of paper. I think the sample kit should include at least that much and the ink cartridge should match that. It seems silly to me for the consumer to have to purchase those items right off the bat in order to get the most out of their device. Imagine if this was received as a gift and the giver didn’t realize that what was included was such a small sample? They would effectively be telling the recipient that they had to spend money to enjoy their gift. It looks like Canon sells the set for around $15 so I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just include one set with the printer when it ships.
The user manual booklet that comes in the box with the printer provides you with details on the device and then directs you to download the mobile app to complete the set-up. As it turns out, you can only print images directly from your Android or iOS smartphone (or tablets). The printer is not compatible with desktop computers. The first device I attempted to connect to the printer (via the app) was my iPhone 11 Pro. The instructions in the app tell you to scan a QR code that’s found inside the printer cartridge compartment. The QR code is supposed to connect you to the printer’s internal Wi-Fi network. I am assuming the code contains the Wi-Fi name and password for the device’s network. I tried a couple of dozen of times to get this process to work and my iPhone would never connect. I tried to scan directly from the QR code on the plastic door of the compartment; I tried to scan the QR code from an enlarged photo I took; I tried to enter the information manually; I even tried deleting the app and reinstalling it AND resetting the printer, but I could never get the iPhone to connect to it. I kept getting a failure to connect message. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, I decided to pick up my iPad and give it a try. I downloaded the app onto the iPad and scanned the QR code and within a few seconds, the printer connected to the iPad. I still can’t figure out why there was a problem with the iPhone/printer connection, but I was at least able to use the printer.
Once the printer was connected, registered, and set-up, I selected a few photos of our family dog to print. The design interface of the Canon SELPHY app is pretty basic. You select your photo, choose a border size, the position of your photo, whether or not you want a date printed on the photo, choose a frame, add stamps or text, paint on the photo, select filters or embellishments, and then you print.
Photos take approximately 45 seconds to print. The SELPHY Square uses a process called dye sublimation. With this process, the ink ribbon is heated and transfers the dye to a special photo paper. This process gives printed photos a much longer life (up to 100 years in some cases) than Zink-based prints. Once you send a photo from the app to print on the paper, the paper actually makes four passes through the printer ribbon. On each pass, the printer lays down a color. It goes in this order – yellow, magenta, and cyan. The fourth pass is actually a clear coat that helps to highlight the photo and protects the image.
The quality of the photos is actually very good. So, even though it seems as though I have had a lot to complain about in this review, I can’t deny that the product the printer creates is very nice. One thing I wish the software would do a bit better is to allow for some color/brightness adjustments. On the screen, I thought the photos looked fine, but when they printed out, they were a bit darker than I expected.
As far as cost goes, photo paper and printer ribbon kit is around $15 for 20 sheets. That would mean that each print (not including this the device charge) costs approximately $0.75. To me, this is a tad on the expensive side of things since you can order larger photo prints from drugstores for about half the cost (4×4 print on standard photo paper is $0.39 per print).
The Canon SELPHY Square is a unique mobile printer, but I think the software really needs some upgrades to make it an exceptional product. I also think the support for it should be beefed up, too since I had a lot of trouble finding answers for issues I had when I was setting it up. I hope that Canon refines this product and its offerings so that the next version is better than the first.