Polaroid to debut first digital camera with built-in printer

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - Digital photography's flexible format has been a boon to consumers.

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You can print images at home, upload them to a social networking site or e-mail a cute shot from your phone to your mom. You even can take some cameras swimming.

But in the digital age, you couldn't print a photo directly from the camera _ a technology Polaroid developed more than 60 years ago. That's about to change.

In March, Polaroid will introduce the first digital camera with a built-in printer. Called the Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera, it will sell for $199 at major retailers.

It won't be the last instant-print digital camera from Polaroid, as the company aims to recapture the magic of another era. Nor is it the company's first cool printing product: Last year's Polaroid PoGo, a stand-alone printer that attaches _ with or without wires _ to digital cameras and camera phones created 2-by-3-inch prints.

The PoGo camera prints on the same 2-by-3-inch paper.

"The first step was to introduce a printer to connect to cameras or phones," said John Pollock, vice president of digital imaging at Polaroid, as he discussed the struggles the company has had during the age of digital photography. (Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection in December, the second time in seven years, saying the filing will not affect product-development plans.)

I've been testing the PoGo camera for several weeks, and I like it. So did my mother-in-law, a long-time Polaroid fan. She was impressed with the family shots we took during the holidays. Moreover, she was happy to see Polaroid back in the game because she has fond memories of instant prints. (She went home with a bunch.)

But I don't love this camera as much as the PoGo printer, one of my 10 favorite gadgets from 2008. Here's why:

_ It's clunky. It's got a printer built in, so the size is to be expected. But the problem with the PoGo _ it weighs nearly a pound with paper and SD card and is much bigger than other digital cameras _ is that you can't easily slip it into a pocket or a purse.

_ It offers only 5 megapixels of resolution, fine for 2-by-3-inch prints. But as a digital camera that can plug into a computer to transfer photos, the PoGo might not provide a high enough resolution to make larger prints or aggressively crop images.

Having said that, the ability to use the PoGo as a digital camera is its best feature, making it better than the old Polaroids in several ways:

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_ You can edit photos on the fly _ fix red eye and crop shots _ before hitting the print button.

_ You can shoot videos.

_ You don't need to print everything. With the old Polaroids, whatever you shot became a print. On the PoGo, you can scroll through the images, then print what you like.

The instant prints look OK, but they give people a reddish tint. Even with the old Polaroid prints, the quality was rarely amazing. That's the same here.

The camera holds 10 pieces of photo paper, and packs of 10 are sold for $5. Packs of 30 sell for $13. (Peel off the backing to turn them into stickers!)

The PoGo camera should sell well as a novelty _ it is fun and easy to use. But the better purchase remains the PoGo printer, available for about $79. It works with any camera and you don't always need to bring it along.

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(Eric Benderoff writes about technology for the Chicago Tribune. Contact him at ebenderoff@tribune.com or at the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611.)

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