Polaroid PDC1050 Digital Camera Review

 

Are you entering the world of digital cameras as a beginner? There’s nothing to be ashamed about. Entering the digital camera world not knowing how to utilize all the features? Or are you in the market for a basic digital camera that your parents can operate? If you fall in one of these categories or similar, you may want to read further to see if the Polaroid PDC1050 Digital Camera is for you.

Polaroid Digital Camera

The front and back of the box

The Polaroid PDC1050 arrived to us via FedEx and was without damage. The box design this time around is different that the PDC310. Polaroid uses a bigger cardboard box with an elegant front design and some information on the back of the box.

Digging inside will find that the package and included bundle is placed in a plastic container to prevent any damage.  What you receive when you purchase the Polaroid PDC1050 are the following items:

Polaroid

The bundle

  • Polaroid PDC1050 One Mega-pixel Digital Camera
  • Leather Pouch
  • Camera Strap
  • USB Cable
  • 4 AA Batteries (Mine was Toshiba branded)
  • Software (Arcsoft Suite) with drivers and users manual
  • Quick Start Guide

The bundle is actually pretty good consisting of high quality alkaline batteries, and a leather pouch. I do know of more expensive cameras that do not include a pouch and this is a great bonus. Once again you have to Arcsoft Suite software program that can do lots of neat things. 

Specifications

  • 1.0 Megapixel Sensor with 1152x864 pixel resolution
  • Built-in 8MB Nand Flash Memory
  • Compact Flash Card Slot
  • High Resolution: 1600x1200 (Interpolated to 2MP) (19 images with built-in memory)
  • Normal Resolution: 1152x864 (39 images w/onboard memory)
  • Low Resolution: 576x432 (111 with onboard memory)
  • 2x Digital Zoom
  • Auto/On/Off Flash
  • Auto Exposure
  • Working range 1m-infinity
  • Web Cam: Apr. 10fps in QVGA
  • Still Images: Jpeg Format
  • Video Clip: Approx. 45 seconds with internal memory
  • Electronic Self Timer with 10 seconds delay
  • Auto Power Off: LCD turns off after 60 seconds of inactivity
  • Camera turns off after 90 seconds of inactivity
  • Wrist Strap, USB Cable, 4xAA Alkaline Batteries & CD-Rom software

As you can see by the specifications, this camera has a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 when interpolated but a normal resolution of 1152x864 in otherwise high resolution if there were no interpolation option. I suggest picking up a Compact Flash because the 8MB is too small of handling many high-res images.

Behold the PDC1050

The camera is made of hard plastic construction and is relatively strong. The PDC1050 is also relatively light with the batteries installed. The front of the Polaroid PDC1050 features a rubber grip so your hands don’t slip while taking photos, a self-timer LED, flash and the lenses.

The back of the unit has your viewfinder, LCD screen, Previous button/next button, OK and Menu button, CF Card Slot, Preview Mode and Playback Mode and LCD OFF button.  The buttons look like rubber but they are plastic to save costs.

The bottom and battery compartment

USB and DC port (AC Adaptor not included) and for the camera strap

The CF Card door opens, make sure you read instructions first and engraved instructions when putting the CF Card in

The bottom of the unit has the mounting for tripod use, and the battery door. The left side has the USB cable and the right side of the unit has the plastic for placing your wrist strap. The Compact Flash door is built solid but the eject button is not. If there is not CF Card present you can here the eject button shaking from left to right if you shake the camera.

The options; LCD is covered with plastic that can be removed

The Polaroid is a point and shoot camera and that is shown from the basic options that the Polaroid 1050 offers. There are only four options that include Setup, USB, Capture, and Exit. In setup you can control the level of brightness of the shots you take.

Software – Please refer to the Polaroid PDC310 review for more on the ArcSoft Suite software.

Installation - You need to install the drivers on the CD for the digital camera to work properly. Once that is done Windows will automatically see it in “My Computer”. From there you can install the software if you like.

Using the camera

From the point where you click the on power button, the Polaroid PDC1050 takes about six seconds to get ready to shoot. From there the LCD turns on. The LCD isn’t very bright and there and is hard to see in sunlight; in fact it is useless in sunlight. When you move the camera, you can see the LCD has refresh rate problems and is choppy at times. It feels like the LCD is interlaced. The 1.4” LCD is adequate in size to see images clearly on the LCD.

The Polaroid PDC1050 feels comfortable in my hands. The grip on the back of the camera is where your thumb goes on for extra grip. The Polaroid PDC1050 beeps once when you take a shot and saves it as JPEG file format. I did notice that while taking images with the onboard memory, the camera lags when it is processing it into the memory. So there is lag present with onboard memory.

By pressing the button near the viewfinder you are able to keep track of images you have onboard, delete them, format the memory and delete specific ones.

Test images

As you can see the images look and perform very good with outdoor shots. Outdoor shots with lots of light is best when using this camera. Indoor shots vary with the amount of light that is present. An example of this is in the picture of the vase. There is one without flash that is grainy and one with flash which looks much better. Color was good at times which some saturation and sometimes more wanted. When you use the 2x zoom make sure you don’t have shaky hands because images may be blurred. 2x zoom resizes itself to the lowest resolution. The Polaroid PDC1050 also preformed very good when I took photos while driving. None of the pictures came out blurry. The ISO of 100 and the high shutter speed makes this possible.  Battery life wasn't bad at all.  I took about 20 images (some with flash and some without) before the included batteries died out.  I suggest purchasing NiMH batteries as they last longer and are environmentally friendly.  We might have some over time to test out.

I was driving in the car when I took a picture of this Infiniti coupe!  Surprisingly it was not blurry

Conclusion

The Polaroid PDC1050 is a good camera for people entering the digital camera world, parents and kids looking to learn and have fun for that matter. There were some quirks such as the LCD screen that lags, and looks interlaced. What I don’t know about this camera if it’s based on the CMOS or CCD design. Other than that, the Polaroid PDC1050 is a good camera.

I rate the Polaroid PDC1050 a…

8/10!

+ Good construction
+ Pouch Included
+ Simple and easy to use
+ Outdoor photos
- LCD
- Some color problems + some processing lag
- A bit grainy in some images
- 8MB onboard memory is too small

I would like to thank Polaroid for making this review possible.

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