Godox P100 is a pocket dye-sublimation printer that laminates every print

Godox has spent two decades making lights. This year it has made a camera and now a printer, and that shift is arguably more interesting than either product on its own. The P100 Portable Color Photo Printer is a pocket-sized dye-sublimation printer aimed at getting phone photos off the camera roll and onto paper — and it follows the C100 compact camera by barely six weeks. Full specifications are on the official Godox P100 product page.

Why dye-sublimation matters here

The printing method is the specification worth understanding, because it is what separates this from the cheap pocket printers most people have encountered.

Many portable printers use Zink — zero ink — technology, where the colour crystals are embedded in the paper and activated by heat. It is clever and cartridge-free, but colour accuracy and tonal gradation are the usual casualties. Dye-sublimation works differently: heat converts solid dye directly to gas, which permeates the surface of the paper before solidifying. Because the dye is applied in continuous tones rather than dots, gradations are smoother, and the result sits far closer to a proper photographic print.

Godox pairs 300 dpi output with 1,256 printhead heating elements and support for 16.7 million colours. It also handles the traditional dye-sub inconvenience — needing both paper and a separate ribbon — by combining the two into a single swappable cartridge. When it runs out you open a side compartment and drop a new one in.

The lamination is the genuinely useful bit

Every print gets an automatic protective overcoat applied as the final stage, which Godox says makes the image resistant to dust, water and fingerprints. That is not marketing fluff: it is standard practice in professional dye-sub systems, and it matters enormously for prints that will be handled, passed around at a shoot, stuck on a fridge or slipped into a wallet. Godox claims decades of preservation as a result.

Connection is over Bluetooth, with NFC tap-to-connect on compatible phones. The Godox Cam app on iOS and Android handles the rest, offering filters, frames, stickers, templates and collage layouts, plus editing controls for brightness, contrast, saturation, colour temperature, exposure, shadows, highlights, sharpening and vignetting. There is also a built-in ID photo maker that formats images to standard passport and visa sizes with adjustable background colours — a genuinely practical inclusion, and the sort of thing that might actually earn the printer a place in a working bag rather than a drawer.

Three things to be clear about

First, and most importantly: these are small prints. The paper measures 97 x 53mm with a printable area of 86 x 53mm — credit-card sized. That is marginally larger than an Instax mini frame, but a long way from a 6×4. If you are picturing handing clients a print at the end of a shoot, adjust expectations accordingly.

Second, Godox has not published a print speed. The marketing says “quick printing, fast results” without a number attached, which is a curious omission when the obvious rival, Canon’s SELPHY QX20, states around 40 seconds. We would want that figure before recommending it.

Third, it ships with only a 10-sheet cartridge, so you will be buying refills quickly. Godox sells 20-sheet replacements separately, and as with any dye-sub printer the running cost is where the real spending happens.

It is also worth noting the competition is real. Canon’s SELPHY QX20 and Xiaomi’s Portable Photo Printer Pro offer near-identical specifications — the Xiaomi runs at 313 dpi with the same 16.7 million colours. Godox is differentiating on app features rather than hardware, which is a reasonable strategy but not an unassailable one.

Still, the wider story here is Godox steadily becoming an imaging brand rather than a lighting one. Between the C100 camera and now the P100, it is building an ecosystem — and doing it at prices that undercut almost everyone.

Godox P100: Specifications

Type: portable dye-sublimation colour photo printer
Resolution: 300 dpi, with 1,256 printhead heating elements and support for 16.7 million colours
Finishing: automatic lamination applying a protective overcoat resistant to dust, water and fingerprints
Photo paper size: 97 x 53mm (3.8 x 2.1in); printable area 86 x 53mm
Consumables: all-in-one cartridge combining paper and ribbon; ships with a 10-sheet cartridge, with 20-sheet replacements available
Connectivity: Bluetooth with NFC tap-to-connect
App: Godox Cam for iOS and Android — filters, frames, stickers, templates, collages, ID photo creation, editing controls and remaining paper count
Battery: 800mAh, 7.4V, 5.94Wh
Power input: 5V/2A via USB-C
Dimensions: 142.5 x 86.8 x 26.8mm
Weight: approximately 320g
Operating temperature: 5°C to 40°C

Godox P100: Price and availability

The P100 launched in China priced at ¥699 (around $104 / £78), supplied with a 10-sheet dye-sublimation cartridge. UK pricing and availability have not yet been confirmed — we will update this story once they are announced.