Polaroid i1032

At first thought, the name Polaroid is directly associated with the good old instant cameras that they had a monopoly with, back in the good old days. At a time when digital camera technology (or for that matter personal computers), was practically unheard of, having a ready picture just seconds after clicking it, was like a dream come true for an average consumer, which lead to Polaroid's success.

Now with Polaroid entering the realm of digital photography, one would normally expect a level of innovation that we have witnessed from so many Polaroid products over the years. Unfortunately, it looks like Polaroid is still 'getting there' with the digital format.

Build
The fat-boxy build of the i1032 ensures that it definitely wouldn't grab your attention because of its looks. The fat build is primarily to make space for the enormous lens that's safely hidden inside the body until the camera is switched on, but personally I feel that the wasted space on the top could have been used more effectively to fit in an actual switch or a dial, that would make it easier to navigate than going through menus and sub-menus in the camera software.

The back of the camera has all the setup options like scene modes, camera options, zoom switch, etc. along with the 2.4 inch LCD display.

What I found really weird about the camera is that even though the camera had ample space on it, the buttons were still small, flat and not very easy to press on it. Even the power button on the top is sunk in, which makes it hard to press.

Sure the build feels sturdy, but that's just about it with the i1032.

Features
Now this is where we see some real potential. Though the i1032 doesn't really have any noteworthy feature to set it apart (which is something it desperately needs at its hefty price point), it does, however, have a pretty good manual exposure mode that lets you set the shutter speed and aperture size by hand.

Besides that, it also has a decent amount of scene modes that just about cover up any environment that you'll be shooting in.

The camera boasts a 10 megapixel resolution and 3x optical zoom. Though the resolution is commendable, the 3x optical zoom seems pretty low for a camera of this caliber. Considering that it has a pretty good image stabilizer, having just 3x optical zoom is literally putting that great feature to waste.