LAS VEGAS -- An interesting development among the many smartphone launches at CES 2016 was photography powerhouse Polaroid announcing two new smartphones for the mid-to-low-end market.
The Polaroid Power and Polaroid Snap will be available in the spring, selling for $249.99 and $129 to $179 respectively. The devices are Polaroid’s first unlocked smartphones for the U.S.
The Polaroid Power and Polaroid Snap include competitive specifications for their prices points, which are a step up from prior iterations of Polaroid devices. “Polaroid has had phones before but they’ve been kind of meh. But they’re really big internationally,” Polaroid representative Kyle Kappmeier told iDigital times.
The Polaroid Power features a 6-inch Full HD display, a 64-bit octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage a 3,000 internal battery plus 8,000 mAh external power bank, 4G LTE connectivity and a rather clean version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Power stands as Polaroid’s flagship product because of its octa-core chip.
“What we like to say is our brand DNA is photography. But around that it’s always been about making it easy and accessible,” Kappmeier said. “Even products like 3D printers, people are like ‘what’s Polaroid doing that for?’ It’s about making high-end technology easy and accessible.”
The Polaroid Snap features 5-inch, 5.5-inch and 6-inch HD display models, a quad-core chip, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, 4G LTE connectivity and Android 5.1 Lollipop.
Both devices feature 13-megapixel rear cameras. The Polaroid Power features an 8-megapixel front camera, while the Polaroid Snap features 5-megapixel front camera. While these are fair shooters for smartphones by a photography company, cameras aren’t standout features for the Power and Snap.
“There’s no special camera technology. There’s nothing skinned with special Polaroid magic. We’re trying to leverage just the Android aspect,” Kappmeier said. “We did to the front facing LED for selfies.”
As a licenser, Polaroid has worked with manufacturer Southern Telecom to produce these devices for the U.S. market. Some other, unnamed, devices at Polaroid’s booth have some sleek varying designs; however, many aren’t available in the U.S.
Polaroid aims to continue addressing the need for reasonably priced smartphones with competitive hardware specifications, but has no plans to develop a high-end flagship to compete with the likes of Samsung or Apple.
Check out our hands on shots of the Polaroid Power, Polaroid Snap and some other international Polaroid devices below.
