Polaroid Now

The new housing on the Polaroid Now is sleeker and softer than before, removing many of the harder corners that have traditionally featured on Polaroid's bodies both new and old.

On top of giving the camera a smoother appearance, this also improves the ergonomics. The Now is still a boxy Polaroid camera, of course, but the softened corners and edges do make it slightly less pointy to hold and handle.

All but two of the manual controls from previous models have been removed. The new autofocus lens replaces the need to switch between the main and secondary lenses on the OneStep+, so the top switch from that model has been jettisoned.

The flash system also omits the manual exposure control, so the only physical inputs aside from the power and shutter are the flash on/off and self-timer buttons.

The shot counter has been redesigned, too, with the panel of eight orange LEDs on top being replaced by a numeric readout indicator, while the flash now has an illuminated "lightning" symbol to show when it is active or not.

In addition to its redesign, the Polaroid Now boasts some technological improvements over its predecessors, the Polaroid OneStep2 and OneStep+ (the latter of which is the current king in our best instant cameras guide).

Its headline feature is a newly developed autofocus lens system, which automatically switches between the dedicated distance and portrait lenses to provide more precise results when shooting.

The performance of the flash is the biggest revelation here, as the Polaroid Now takes a significantly brighter and better exposed image than the OneStep2.

You'll also notice from those same comparison images that the Now delivers substantially better color reproduction. Of course, the color output is in large part down to the photochemistry being dictated by the flash, but we got consistently better colors from the Now than we did its elder sibling.

Somewhat less consistent, however, was outdoor exposure. In most situations the camera handles abundant ambient light very well.

The USB-chargeable lithium-ion battery has also been improved, as the Polaroid Now packs enough juice to shoot up to 15 packs of film. That works out as 120 shots – which obviously isn't a patch on the output of mirrorless cameras (let alone DSLRs), but remember that instant cameras fire off a flash, process film and mechanically eject prints. 

Pros: Improved flash; Superior image quality; Longer battery life.

Сons: Expensive film; Inconsistent outdoors.

When it comes to instant cameras, the Polaroid Now is an instant classic. It delivers superior image quality and does away with the extraneous controls for a straight-to-the-point-and-shoot experience.