I literally made a print from an image on my mobile phone 10 minutes after taking the PoGo out of the box. And no wires were needed to send that image to this iPod-sized photo printer.

That’s just part of the beauty of the PoGo, available now at Best Buy stores for $150 and later this summer from other retailers.

The PoGo will be a hit because Polaroid has created a device that recalls our positive association with the iconic brand: It creates fun photos.

These aren’t 4-by-6-inch prints one makes from home printers. Rather, the PoGo creates 2-by-3-inch prints (about the size of a business card) that double as stickers if you peel the backing off. Even if you don’t, they’re cute enough that you’ll want to share.

When I showed friends and co-workers this new product, they were not impressed by the product’s non-descript black rectangle shape. But when I showed them the prints, practically everyone said, ‘‘Wow, what great pictures.’’

Perhaps they were being nice - I had pictures of my kids, of course - but it was clear the images were more interesting than the PoGo itself. It was only after they learned how I made the prints that they wanted to hear about the PoGo.

Gadgets should follow through on their primary purpose. We want a digital camera to take great pictures, we want an iPod to play music and we want a mobile phone (mostly) for making calls. If that end result doesn’t happen - capturing a great smile, listening to an empowering song or saying hello to mom - what good is the gadget?

The magic of these little prints lies in the fact that the PoGo is portable. You can drop it in a purse or in your cargo pants.

It has one button, to turn it on or off, and a USB port to attach a digital camera.

You can print from a phone or a digital camera. I did both, using a Bluetooth wireless connection to print from my phone and the USB port for my camera. Both worked beautifully and with minimal thought.

Cameras need to have a technology called PictBridge (most newer models do) and not all Bluetooth-enabled camera phones will work. That includes the iPhone, which doesn’t have the right Bluetooth profile. A list of compatible camera phones - and there are plenty - can be found at www.polaroid.com/pogo.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the PoGo is that it uses no ink. The paper, rather remarkably, is embedded with ‘‘100 billion’’ yellow, magenta and cyan dye crystals that are activated by heat.

It is called Zink, for zero ink, and the PoGo is the first product to use the technology from a company called Zink Imaging. More products are coming, Polaroid said.

If there is a drawback to the PoGo, it is the cost of the Zink paper.

Depending on how much you buy, it will cost between 33 cents and 40 cents a print, easily twice the cost of a standard digital print processed by the corner drug store. (I pay 12 cents a print through an online photo service.)

Also, the print quality is average. It is better than those old Polaroid instant prints but not quite as good as professionally processed 4-by-6 prints.

The print cost can add up quickly if you’re like me and my 4 1/2-year-old son. We couldn’t get enough of these fun little prints and zapped off two dozen before I realized I was almost out of paper.

The print size is great for portraits of kids who like to ham it up.

Bring it to a birthday party, and the guests will want to take a bunch of photos home; give the PoGo to a group of teenage girls and watch them preen and laugh as the prints roll out.

The PoGo should be a shot in the arm for Polaroid, which has discontinued most of its iconic instant cameras. The few it still makes likely will be finished soon, since the company said it will stop making instant film later this year.

Instead, Polaroid is making digital cameras, memory cards, photo frames and even GPS devices for cars. But those items are available from a dozen manufacturers.

That’s not the Polaroid we remember. The PoGo should change that.

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