Polaroid’s Pop returns the brand to its iconic instant format

Polaroid had a hit on its hands with the Snap. The device marked the perfect marriage between an iconic brand and new technologies, re-developing the once novel phenomenon of instant film for an early 21 century millennial crowd. According to a rep I spoke with, the brand can’t keep the thing on the shelves.

Unveiled this week at CES, the Pop is essentially a scaled up version of that product, doubling the megapixel count to 20, and, perhaps more important, returning the to the equally iconic 3 x 4 size – a familiar format to those who remember Polaroid from the first go-round. We can only imagine what the Polaroid Crack has in-store.

The device was on-hand at CES, albeit in an not final form. The brand was showing off printed pictures and the hardware, but it couldn’t do much beyond turning on. That’s enough to take a look at the design, which is really quiet lovely. It was created by the same firm behind the Snap, but is much rounder than its boxy predecessor. Kind of a digital lozenge, if you will.

On the rear of the device is a 3.97-inch touchscreen LCD, which, admittedly removes some of the Russian roulette style intrigue of not knowing what you get until the thing develops. The photos themselves print out on Zink paper, which activates crystals to create pictures – the same technology on the Snap and a number of other photo printers out there. Arguably not as satisfying as film, but Polaroid has a vested interest in using Zink – and the pictures actually look fairly good.

The camera will be available toward the end of the year. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but a rep told me it should be in the neighborhood of $200. Hopefully they’ve worked out some of the problems with the last gen.