Polaroid, the company you used to love back when you were a child, is about to enter the smartphone game with a new device called the SC1630. It’s going to pack a 16 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, have a 3.2 inch screen that does 800 x 480 pixels, and it’s going to cost just $300 when it launches in April, though we don’t know if that’s unsubsidized or not. Before you get all excited, note that not everything launched at CES actually makes it to market. The SC1630 looks like the Aigo A8, a device that was launched at CES last year and was supposedly released in China. So is the Polaroid SC1630 going to end up being nothing more than a huge puff of vaporware? If we had to make any bets, we’d say yep, it sure is.
All that being said, if you’re the type of person who takes photography seriously enough to want to buy a smartphone that can replace a point and shoot, then you really only have two choices. First, and most obvious, is the iPhone 4S. Not only is the speed of the camera amazing, but it ties in to all the photo sharing services and social networks that you happen to use, because what’s the point of taking so many photos if you’re not going to share them? Then there’s the Nokia N8, which runs a somewhat difficult to use operating system, but it more than makes up for that by packing a stunning 12 megapixel sensor inside an all aluminum body. Even better is that there’s a Xenon flash, so you can actually take photos at night without them ending up being washed out and grainy.
Who is going to take the imaging lead in 2012? It’s too early to say, but something tells us we’ll find out at Mobile World Congress next month!