Polaroid instant camera PoGo will get your party hopping

— -- Mention "instant photography" these days and the conversation will likely be about digital cameras. But mention it to an older crowd and Polaroid is sure to come up.

Now the company once synonymous with instant photography hopes to revitalize a tarnished image by taking a step back to the future.

The new PoGo Instant Digital Camera is, indeed, a throwback. Like the iconic Polaroids of yesteryear, PoGo can eject small (in this case "inkless") prints from the camera, in less than a minute.

But PoGo, which Polaroid plans to start selling later this spring, belongs to the digital age. You can capture images on a standard memory card (not included) or upload to a PC or Mac via USB. You can review shots on the fly and dispense with duds. You can also capture video, though you cannot print a still from within clips.

Polaroid withdrew from the film business last year, and through various corporate incarnations has been in and out of bankruptcy lately. Polaroid is now in Chapter 11.

This isn't Polaroid's first stab at blending digital technology with something retro. In 2000, I reviewed the Camedia C-211 Zoom, from Polaroid and Olympus. It was a cumbersome and — at $799 — pricey digital camera that produced instant baseball-card size silver halide prints.

While hardly flawless, the $199 PoGo camera is cheaper and friendlier to use than the long-since retired Camedia. It uses special photo paper from a company called Zink; the paper costs $4.99 for a 10-pack and $12.99 for a 30-pack.

Based on my experience, instant-gratification prints can still work magic, even if what you're printing are 2-by-3-inch snapshots. PoGo delighted my kids and most adults I showed it to. I can see it being a huge hit at parties and family gatherings.

But while fun and mostly a snap to shoot with, the 5-megapixel camera suffers from important drawbacks. The integrated printer makes it too bulky to carry in your pocket. It lacks a viewfinder (alas, that's true of many digital cameras) and has no optical zoom. Most of all, the battery life is poor, especially if you're printing, and printing is why you're reading about this camera in the first place. Here's a close-up: