The Polaroid Cube
In the last half-decade, the action camera market has really taken off. Its forerunners include GoPro and Sony with their respective action cameras, the GoPro HERO 3 and the POV Action Cam. There's a new contender for the action camera market, but it has an old, respectable name: Polaroid.
What's Polaroid's Cube?
While browsing the news on the web, I saw a Bloomberg Business article that detailed Polaroid's latest endeavor, the Polaroid Cube. It's an action camera meant to compete with the GoPro HERO 3, but there's a catch: it's after the casual market.
While the HERO 3 is geared towards the action heavy crowd, the Cube will be targeting the ordinary folk. Thrill seekers and athletes are sure to gravitate to an affordable action camera, but it's also meant for the teacher, gamer, vacationer, and just about anyone under the sun.
The Cube's Specs are fairly impressive for a small package. According to Engadget, the Cube will feature 90 minutes of recording time at full 1080p. It is also water resistant up to 6 feet and has an effective photo resolution of 6 megapixels.
According to the official webpage, the Cube also sports a 124 degree wide angle lens, which is a bit narrower than the HERO 3's 170 degree field of view. Like the HERO 3, it has no LCD screen, just a dual action button that turns the camera on and off and start and stop the recording.
Like an Apple product or a Nintendo product, I expected it to just work. And it did.
Chris Burns, Slash Gear
Why is the Cube Relevant?
As Chris Burns of Slash Gear puts it, "Like an Apple product or a Nintendo product, I expected it to just work. And it did." The simplistic design is reminiscent of Apple products thanks to former Apple designer Robert Brunner's company Ammunition, which is responsible for designs of products like Beats Headphones, the Barnes and Noble Nook tablets and Adobe's Ink and Slide.
The tiny 35mm square cube contains all of the camera guts alongside a rechargeable battery and enough space for a single button, a mini-SD card slot ( supports up to 32GB), an USB port and a magnet to boot. The rainbow that bisects the camera is reminiscent of the Polaroid Land cameras of yesteryear, yet its filleted edges, rounded corners and an eye-like lens gives it a contemporary flare.
Considering that it has one button that does two things, it should prove to be an incredibly easy camera to use. As Chris mentioned in his review, you can do initial set up using an app after plugging the camera to a PC or Mac. Other than that, you can
The Monkey Stand for the Polaroid Cube
As though to flatter GoPro, Polaroid has a slew of accessories available for the Cube, from the practical bike, helmet and waterproof case/suction cup mounts to the more novel bumper case and monkey stand. The monkey stand, by the way, is a strange and wonderful idea.
What's the Cube like?
I can only state my opinions by living vicariously through Chris's demo videos, which he filmed from a moving car and on a skateboard.
Let's talk about the former video. Like most point and shoots, phones and action cameras, the Cube has a tendency to blow out highlights when moving into a shade. Maybe this is because of the auto exposure controls, but that's mostly forgivable. Details are nice and crisp for the most part, but I do see fine details getting lost thanks to motion blur.
The latter skateboard video, showed me three things. First, the camera's magnet may be robust, but it stood no chance against inertia. Second, the camera is incredibly durable. It survived being knocked off Chris's skateboard and then some. It even continued to record even after that thrashing. Third, the camera does really well in consistent light. While details in the sky get blown out and the grass gets muddy in the car video, the skateboard video retained details consistently throughout.
In both videos, as you may expect, audio is not the Cube's strong point. Just like any other camera in the market, the mic will pick up lots of wind noise outside of a moving vehicle.
When is it coming out?
Polaroid has the Cube available for pre-order now and the Cube is slated for release in October. At $99, it is an incredibly affordable action camera.