Polaroid Cube review: Hands-free video in an ultrasmall package
The eye-catching Polaroid Cube is an inexpensive 1080p video camera that's small and light enough to be your constant companion.
It might be indelibly linked to instant cameras and film, but the Polaroid brand has long been seen on other products like tablets, televisions, headphones, and, yes, action cams such as the XS100i .
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The $99 Polaroid Cube (£89, AU$149) falls into that category, too, though its size and features definitely set it apart from your average POV cam. The Cube measures 1.4 inches square (35mm), weighs 1.6 ounces (45.4g), and from appearances consists of little more than a camera lens and one button.
And really, that's not far from the truth. This is a camera you toss in your bag or attach to yourself or your bike, skateboard, and so forth, so you can capture hands-free video for sharing online.
It's also small and light enough that you could attach it to a quadcopter or other RC vehicle, though for that you might be better off with something like the Mobius or Dimika action cams. They might not be as interesting to look at, but they offer more functionality for the same price.
Design and features
The Cube isn't much more than what you see. The wide-angle lens has a 124-degree angle of view, so you get a lot of the scene you're shooting with some barrel distortion that's pretty standard for the category. The body is shock-proof and weatherproof, so a little rain or snow won't hurt it but you wouldn't want to submerge it.
With the edge of a coin you can remove the small circular cover on the back that's covering the microSDHC card slot (up to 32GB cards are supported; none are included) and Micro-USB port for charging, transferring video and photos, and setting the camera's date and time. You'll also find a switch for selecting your recording resolution: 720p at 30 frames per second or 1080p at 30fps.
On the bottom is a magnet. It's a cool idea since it means you can instantly pop it onto metal surfaces and mount the camera. The problem I ran into more often than not was that the metal on my bike or skateboard didn't provide enough magnetic attraction to hold the camera. The parts that did frequently weren't horizontal, and the video doesn't rotate in any way. The Cube did, however, stick to the hood of my car and it withstood driving at up to 40mph (64kmh).
Again, it's a cool idea, but it would have been more useful to have made the magnet a cover for a tripod mount instead of being the one and only way to mount the Cube out of the box. Even just a simple lanyard or clip would have been nice to have for this "lifestyle action camera."
Polaroid has several mounts that will be available, but it means you'll be laying out more money for something as basic as a helmet mount. Or, at the very least, you'll be looking for a way to add a piece of metal to whatever you want to attach it to.
On top is one big button, the camera's only control. Press it for a few seconds to turn it on and off. When on, press it once and it'll snap a 6-megapixel picture. Give the button two quick presses to start recording and once more to stop. That's it, you've now mastered using the Cube.
There is a small LED status light in front of the button, and it will emit beeps as well. For example, it beeps when you start a recording and the light blinks red. When the battery reaches 10 percent, it beeps four times and the LED turns orange.
A small application for Windows and Mac gets dropped onto your microSD card when you put it in. This allows you to set the beep volume as well as adjust the date and time, turn on a time stamp, and activate cycle recording. That last one will allow to loop the recording so you can use the Cube as a dashboard camera; the Cube can record while being powered by a Micro-USB cable.
Battery life is somewhat short at about 90 minutes and, as you might imagine, the battery is not removable so you can't just pop in a fresh one. The camera is geared toward creating quick clips, though. While you can keep recording until the battery dies or your memory card fills up, the Cube chops your recordings into 5-minute clips.
Video and photo quality
Whether you like the clips that come out of the Cube comes down to how you plan to use and view the video.
The quality is fine for sharing online and viewing on mobile devices, but at larger screen sizes and viewed closely, it's much less pleasing.
The bit rate is really low for 1080p video at 8Mbps and it shows. Any subject that is the slightest bit complex, like trees or moving pavement, turns into a mess of mushy detail and blocky artifacts. Low-light video is pretty noisy on top of all the artifacts and definitely something to keep in mind if you're looking at this for capturing a lot of indoor video.
These are things you might not notice when viewing at small sizes, though. Colors are pleasingly vivid and I didn't see much Jell-O effect from camera shake. Exposure changes are reasonably smooth, but if the camera is on a helmet, where you're frequently moving it through different lighting conditions, it can be a bit all over the place.
Photo quality is like the video: don't look too closely or shoot in low light.
Conclusion
The Polaroid Cube has a design that will get attention. It's pretty incredible that this little box has a camera, battery, and room for everything else it takes to capture HD video. However, and maybe I'm just expecting too much from a $99 ultrasmall camera, I wish the video were a bit better in quality and that the built-in magnet weren't the only way to mount the camera out of the box.