ok first off, i am not sponsored. i'm a nobody. i hate that we have to say this online or else people suspect sponsorship no matter the tone of the writing. also this is a $20 device i doubt i would've gotten this for free lol.
anyway i bought a tiny little thermal printer! it's a nelko PM230. i know nothing about the brand or manufacturer and also i bought it from amazon because i don't have much spending money so i had to cut corners. it comes in different cute pastel colors, and i chose purple, which matches my desk setup well, but honestly i just went with it because it was a few bucks cheaper than the other models.
immediately after checking out, i read the description a little closer, which says that printing can only be done through a mobile app. like, it explicitly does not support printing from a computer, or even through normal bluetooth. you have to use the app which then uses bluetooth. that sucks!
i went and asked my friends, should i cancel the order or try to hack on it till it works with linux. i said the latter part even though i definitely do not have the skills to force it to connect normally lol. my friends were mostly like, yeah cancel it, until one friend via IRC linked me to this github repo by Northernside that (at the time) was 5 days old with a single commit. it claims to provide a web UI to print from a computer, and includes a driver that makes that possible. after i saw that, i thought, okay fuck it i won't cancel the order.
a few days later i get the printer in the mail. i unboxed it today actually. and it's so adorable. it's tiny!!! it's a little guy!!!!
before i tested it out, i actually compiled the software from that github repo. it had no docs but it's golang so i just ran go build and got a binary. after running it, though... it has no linux support! the software was built on and for macOS. i was pretty disappointed, but, i'm not gonna blame or bother the dev. it looks like a hobby project and i'm not about to open an issue begging for linux support so i don't have to download a privacy-compromising app. i hate to install the app, i hate using my phone, but i bought this thing and i want to use it!
i admittedly had to watch a video on the amazon page that shows how to install the roll of sticker paper, after struggling for like 5 minutes trying to force it in the slot. but eventually i got it. i did a test print, and i was overjoyed to see it print a tiny QR code in decent quality!
after that, i begrudgingly installed the app, and started going through my picture downloads to see what to print. i decided on meme images to test with, because i don't know how real-life photos will look, nor do i plan on printing many of those. my idea for getting this was to print cropped screenshots and other digital stuff, not to like, scrapbook with pictures of my day or whatever. (not that that's a bad thing! just not my thing.)
i'm actually really impressed with the quality of the prints! the reviews made me think they'd look like shit from a butt, which i would've been okay with because it was $20. but this is like, shockingly good, relatively speaking. this isn't a review post, it's more like first impressions, so don't take this as a glowing recommendation of the printer. i really don't like that i'm locked into downloading an app with a privacy agreement so i can use the printer i bought. that really blows.
but i do like this thing. if you're willing to sacrifice privacy to print tiny black and white stickers for notebook purposes, it'll do the job. if you're not willing to sacrifice your privacy, and you have more money to spend, look at other options that can print in color or something. if you're broke like me and willing to concede on the app thing for a cheap printer, then yeah, go for it.
...if you have the skill and money, though, and you're reading this: please help us broke bitches and reverse engineer this printer!! make some multi-platform software that lets me print from my computer without using the app!!!! we need people like you!!!!!!!