Gizmos | Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera

Polaroid recently announced the PoGo Instant Digital Camera, a 5.0 megapixel digital camera with a built-in printer. The camera uses ZINK (zero ink) technology and can print 2 x 3 borderless photos on adhesive-backed paper. While the prints may be small, the camera is ideal for on-the-spot printing, with the images transferable to SD cards for printing larger versions on other photo printers.


Available this March 2009, the PoGo camera can also serve as a full-fledged digicam even without the ZINK photo paper; it features a large 3" LCD screen, with various options to store, enhance, and crop images. You can even add decorative borders, including the famous, white Polaroid print border.

During the 1970s-1980s, Polaroid was the name to beat with its line of cameras that instantly developed your photos. All you need to do was to point, shoot, and click--and out comes this white square of paper with an image that gradually appeared before your eyes.

We had one of those Polaroid cameras, and I remember always being amazed at the way the pictures came out in such a short amount of time. The bad part was that you couldn't duplicate them, and they all had that thick, white border around them. The images would also fade as they aged.

With the advent of digital cameras in the late 1990s, Polaroid's hold on the market faded, but they're still hanging in there, this time focusing on inexpensive digicams for the young adult crowd. Last year, they created the PoGo brand, which I think is short for "Polaroid on the Go" (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and is actually a nice, catchy, and quite effective name as far as brand names go.

The PoGo Mobile Printer was then released in early 2008; it's a small, portable ZINK printer that can print photos directly from cell phones or other digicams. It was only a matter a time before they integrated the printer with a camera, and the PoGo Instant Digital Camera was born, which can be really called the successor to Polaroid's classic instant cameras.

I like the way the camera complements the look of the Mobile Printer--the combination of black and silver is always a good one. The Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera will retail for about US $199, or about P 9,460; a bit expensive, but hey, it's got a printer.