Polaroid rises from the dead, as a digital with print
First came the news that Polaroid had been pushed into bankruptcy. Now it is has done a Lazurus with a triple bypass and risen from the dead. Digitally.
Polaroid announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it will be selling a digital camera. But one with a unique selling proposition. As did Polaroid of yesteryear, this camera will produce pictures on the spot. Do not call them instant prints for they take a minute to appear. But it is a welding together of the old Polaroid technology with the new digital age.
If you want to be very basic about it, the PoGo — oh! appalling name — is a camera that is also a color printer because that is built in. No ordinary color printer. This produces 2-by-3 inch photos by selectively heating spots on specially treated paper. Totally different to the old Polaroid process but the prints still have that off-Polaroid color which make it look as though Andy Warhol has been somehow involved in the process and they are very grainy.
This is a successor to a standalone Polaroid printer which was marketed before the company fell into the hands of rogues and vagabonds.
So Polaroid is back. But not quite yet. It should be around in late March or early April.
In a sense this is a major step forward for Polaroid for with this camera you can look at the picture on the screen before you print it. Which will save you money because the paper costs $5 for a 10-pack or $13 for a 30-pack. That is quite expensive. What you are paying for is instant gratification.
The bad news is that it has none of the built-in gubbins to which we have become used. No auto-focus, no zoom. Indeed, nothing much. You can use a switch for infinity or close-up shots but that is about it. The resolution is five megapixels and the print is small and low-res but still relatively instant.
There is a lot of shutter lag which mean you will not be shooting action. And, another downside, the life of a single charge on the battery is limited because you are running both a digital camera and a printer.
Think 20 prints on one charge.
(Worth noting that the original Polaroid packs used to have batteries built into the film packs and these were used by terrorists to construct firing mechanisms for bombs.)
The bankruptcy which was caused by frigging in the rigging still hangs over the head of Polaroid but by the time this machine appears on the market that should have been resolved.
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