Spotlight: This case turns your phone into a Polaroid

Let’s face it: smartphone cases are boring. They add extra protection, style or battery life to your device, but most usually stop right there. Now, a small French startup called Prynt is kicking it up a notch.

The Prynt smartphone case.

Let's face it: smartphone cases are boring. They add extra protection, style or battery life to your device, but most usually stop right there. Now, a small French startup called Prynt is kicking it up a notch.

Prynt's case, which was born from a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $1.5 million earlier this year, lets you print Polaroid-style photos directly from your device. The case slides onto the back of your phone and plugs into the bottom. Hold your phone horizontally and you'll find a conveniently located hand-grip and trigger button on the right. Use the button to snap a photo and watch in amazement as it slides right out of the case in about 30 seconds.

The fun doesn't end there, however. Prynt also has an augmented reality app. If you click a picture using the app, Prynt actually records a little video. If you print out the picture you clicked, you can hold up the printed photo to Prynt's app where it will be overlaid with a print button and start playing the video in place of the picture itself.

The case itself weighs in at a little over 200 gm — not something you want strapped to your phone all the time, but not exactly hefty — and is about as thick as two iPhones glued together. The images themselves are printed on Polaroid's compact 2 x 3 inch ZINK papers.

On the flipside, the case doesn't connect to your phone over Bluetooth or WiFi but plugs in physically — which means it's restricted to the iPhone 6, 5S, 5C, and the Samsung Galaxy S5 and S4.

At $129, approximately ₹ 8,000, the Prynt case don't come cheap — but hey, if you fancy a portable photo printer, it's worth it. Its sheets of paper will run you about ₹ 1,500 for a set of 50.