We have to hand it to Fujifilm — the company is getting experimental with its Instax instant camera lineup. The newest to arrive in South Africa is the Mini LiPlay+ hybrid instant camera. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for one of the company’s portable photo printers… from the front, anyway.
From the rear, the Mini LiPlay+ is still a bit of a weirdo. The retro-ish controls are present over the film door, but it looks like Fuji has banged one of its digital camera displays onto the same surface. Which they have, of course. There’s a reason for that.
Instax of shots
The relatively large 2.7in digital display is already odd for an Instax camera, but the real unique point here is the addition of a second, rearward-facing camera sensor. Sticking a little mirror on the front of the unit apparently isn’t conducive to great selfies. Framing your shots in an LCD, though? That might make certain customers happier.
The dual image sensors are slightly different. The main is a 4.9 megapixel effort, capable of 2,560 x 1,920 shots. This won’t matter if you’re just using Instax film, but the snaps can also be exported… The rear camera is supposedly a wide-angle, but we’ve struggled to find exact stats for its performance. The same sensor with a wider lens, perhaps?
We’ve been expecting the Instax Mini LiPlay+ for quite some time now. We first encountered the dual-camera oddity in October last year. At the time, we estimated pricing would be about R4,100. Turns out, we were wrong. Recommended pricing for the instant camera is R4,000.
