Hands-On With the Polaroid Instant Digital Camera

Last year, the Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer landed on our reviews desk with a disappointing thud. Thanks to ZINK technology, whose special paper contains crystals that turn colors when heated, the PoGo could print without ink, making it the most mobile of mobile printers we’ve seen. Too bad the colors were so washed out and the only available paper was 3 x 2 sticker sheets.

And yet, we couldn’t resist checking out the Polaroid Instant Digital Camera ($199) the first– you guessed it– digital camera with a built-in printer. As far as digital cameras go, it’s kind of a joke: it has five-megapixel resolution, fixed focus, 4X digital zoom, and, at 10 ounces without an SD card or rechargeable battery, is almost three times as heavy as most point-and-shoots.

The reason it’s so heavy, of course, is that there’s a ZINK-enabled printer inside. Like the PoGo it prints 3 x 2 stickers. We like that there’s a dedicated print button, which made the printing process fast and easy. It’s also neat that you can crop photos and add borders on the 3-inch screen.

The camera has the same printer specs as the PoGo, meaning they’re both rated to print in a minute or less. Indeed, that’s about how long it took for the picture to fully come out after we initiated the printing.

The final product was similar, too: bluish overtones made the picture look washed out. That’s not Polaroid’s fault of course; we actually commend their ability to stay current as photography becomes overwhelmingly digital. But now that ZINK has found a way to print without ink, we think its next step should be making those heat-activated colors, you know, look better.

Check out out hands-on video below.