Polaroid’s ‘Instagram Camera’ Now Available for Preorder

Polaroid, a company that’s synonymous with old-school instant cameras, is bringing its products into the social media age with the Polaroid Socialmatic. Now available for preorder through Amazon, the Socialmatic combines a classic instant camera with the ability to upload your photos to your favorite social media platforms — including, yes, Instagram.

The camera, which is a dead ringer for that Instagram app icon on your smartphone, features a 14-megapixel main camera and comes with a 2 MP rear camera for taking selfies, because of course it does.

Thanks to its Android operating system and 4.5-inch display, the Socialmatic can also be used as a kind of smart camera, so you can browse the Web and access your email.

Perhaps more importantly, though, you can download your favorite social media apps including Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, Instagram, so you can upload your photos to the web as soon as you’re within range of an available Wi-Fi signal.

The Socialmatic also includes built-in Bluetooth and GPS, so you can connect the camera to your smartphone, as well as add location data to your images, which means you’ll easily be able to see where they were taken.

And with 4 GB of onboard storage, and a microSD card slot that lets you add an additional 32 GB of space, you can save a massive number of photos and videos on the Socialmatic.

The camera pumps out 2 × 3 photos that Polaroid says are water-resistant and smudge-proof, which is a huge improvement over those runny instant photos of yore. Stacks of photo paper for the Socialmatic are also fairly cheap at $15 for a stack of 50.

For a camera that’s ostensibly made for pulling out during parties, however, the Socialmatic is a bit on the pricey side: $299 to be exact.

If that’s too rich for your blood, you might also want to check out Polaroid’s Cube, a 3.5 mm cube that lets you shoot videos and photos with ease. The kicker is that the Cube, which is just $99, doesn’t have a viewfinder of any kind, so you’re no longer tempted to spend all your time looking at the world through your camera, when you could be experiencing it with your own two eyes.

But if you’re the kind of person who loves documenting every moment of your life for social media, and craves the instant gratification of a Polaroid, the Socialmatic may be the camera for you.

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+ here.