instax mini Evo vs mini 99

#	Product	Best for	Cost per shot	Price
1	Fujifilm instax mini EvoThe only instax that lets you not print a bad photograph.	Best for most buyers at this price	$0.85	Check price
2	Fujifilm instax mini 99Real dials, real commitment, and the best flash reach of any instax mini.	Best for someone who wants a film camera	$0.85	Check price
3	Fujifilm instax mini 41The same print at a third of the price, with nothing to learn.	The cheaper answer if neither feature matters	$0.85	Check price

They are not the same kind of camera

This is the comparison people get wrong, because the two cameras sit next to each other at the same price and both say instax mini on the box. They are different machines. The mini 99 is a film camera: light goes through the lens onto the film, and the picture you get is the picture you took. The Evo is a small digital camera with an instax printer bolted to it: it takes the photograph to a screen first, and film is only consumed when you decide it should be.

That difference is worth real money. At 85 cents a frame, a camera that prints only the good ones is cheaper to own than a camera that prints everything — and most people's first pack of film contains at least four frames they would not have printed given the choice.

Specification by specification

The f/2.0 lens is the other reason the Evo wins indoors

Every simple instax mini has an f/12.7 lens and leans entirely on its flash. The Evo's lens is f/2.0 — many stops brighter — and it autofocuses. Indoors, at a dinner table, in a bar, that is the difference between a usable photograph and a bright foreground against a black wall. The mini 99 narrows the gap with the longest flash reach in the range at 2.7 m and a bulb mode for static night shots, but it cannot match an f/2.0 lens on available light.

If low light is the main use case, our low-light picks go through this in more detail.

What the mini 99 does that the Evo cannot

Three things, and they are real. Bulb mode holds the shutter open for up to ten seconds, which is how you photograph a lit street or a sparkler trail on film. Exposure compensation lets a person who understands light overrule the camera. And the vignette switch and color dial happen optically, in the camera, rather than as a filter applied to a digital file.

There is also the part that does not appear in a specification. A film camera makes you commit, and people who like film like that. If the recipient has ever said they shoot film, the 99 is the better gift even though the Evo is the more capable machine.

Cost over a year

Read that table knowing it assumes the same number of prints from both. In practice the Evo's whole point is that it prints fewer frames for the same number of photographs taken, so its real-world film bill lands below the figure shown. The 99's does not.

Who should buy which

• •A teenager or a twenty-something whose photos live on their phone: mini Evo, which prints those photos too.
• •Someone who has mentioned shooting film: mini 99, for the bulb mode and the dials.
• •A heavy shooter on a budget: mini Evo, because it is the only instax that lets them not print a bad frame.
• •Someone who wants an object rather than a gadget: mini 99, or the cheaper mini 41 if the dials would go unused.
• •A buyer choosing on looks alone: mini 41, and put the difference into film.