C|NET Reviews the Polaroid Juke Jam PDP 600 (20GB)

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://reviews.cnet.com/Polaroid_Juke_Jam_PDP_600__20GB_/4505-6490_7-30632676-2.html?tag=top' target='_blank'>http://reviews.cnet.com/Polaroid_Juke_Jam_PDP_600__20GB_/4505-6490_7-30632676-2.html?tag=top</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Polaroid, best known for its contributions to photography and Outkast lyrics, presents the 20GB Juke Jam as one of its first forays into the MP3 scene. The $300 hard drive player looks like it could be the iPod's obese sibling, and its spacious LCD and joystick are almost as easy to use as the iPod's. Unfortunately, a few significant flaws prevent the Juke Jam from being a true top-shelf competitor."</i><br /><br />This unit seemed promising (look at the size of that display!), but C|NET thumps it with a 6/10 rating.

[James Fee]

Is there nothing that Polaroid won't put its name on anymore?

I guess when you build your business around licensing the name, you gotta do this kind of stuff.

[Felix Torres]

I've been keeping an eye on this player since I first saw it at PCMall for $169.
Can't say it's a total show-stopper, but the lack of a hold button is a *big* minus. Gotta wonder what they were thinking...

[Felix Torres]

Is there nothing that Polaroid won't put its name on anymore?

I guess when you build your business around licensing the name, you gotta do this kind of stuff.

Well, its worth remembering the Polaroid name comes from their first product: polarized film and coatings for optics and sunglasses.

The company existed for 20 years or so before moving into instant photography, so its not as if their photography roots are that deep anyway. They're not like Kodak, which started as a camera maker, evolved into a chemicals business, and is now working to evolve into an digital imaging company...

[James Fee]

The company existed for 20 years or so before moving into instant photography, so its not as if their photography roots are that deep anyway. They're not like Kodak, which started as a camera maker, evolved into a chemicals business, and is now working to evolve into an digital imaging company...
But isn't that Polaroid dead? I thought they went bankrupt and the name was sold off?

OK, this isn't a "smoking gun", but I think I was right. I doubt the old polaroid makes anything anymore...

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/01/05/daily35.html

[Felix Torres]

The company existed for 20 years or so before moving into instant photography, so its not as if their photography roots are that deep anyway. They're not like Kodak, which started as a camera maker, evolved into a chemicals business, and is now working to evolve into an digital imaging company...
But isn't that Polaroid dead? I thought they went bankrupt and the name was sold off?

OK, this isn't a "smoking gun", but I think I was right. I doubt the old polaroid makes anything anymore...

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/01/05/daily35.html

Well, *somebody* is still making and selling instant cameras and film under the Polaroid name and logo...
...and claiming the whole corporate history going back to Edwin Land's polarizing celluloid film...

http://www.polaroid.com/index.jsp

[James Fee]

It doesn't mean that they can't, just that the company that Edwin Land created when bankrupt in 2002 and all shareholders got nothing.

[Felix Torres]

&lt;shrug>
Whoever they are, they're selling the pre-bankruptcy products, as well as supporting them. Name licensing aside, the current outfit selling Polaroid cameras and film is using IP and facilities that predate the bankruptcy sale and likely even a lot of personnel.
The thing about corporations is that they exist independent of the humans who created them; the current Polaroid has enough continuity in products and brand identity to be considered the same company.
The same applies to Rio, even though they are now a division of Denon, instead of whatever remains of Diamond (I think VIA owns that, no?).

I don't think its quite the same as, say, Packard Bell or Commodore or Maybach, where there was a long gap between corporate incarnations; Polaroid products never disappeared from the market, regardless of whatever happened to the folks that ran the company into the ground.

[James Fee]

As I said, it appears that they are licensing their name more often now.

I just don't see people running out and buying a mp3 player because it has a Polaroid name on it.

They ain't Apple....

[Felix Torres]

As I said, it appears that they are licensing their name more often now.

I just don't see people running out and buying a mp3 player because it has a Polaroid name on it.

They ain't Apple....

Buying it? Maybe not...
Looking at it?
Consider it?
Very likely.
Faced with a Shimatzu Juke Jam and a Polaroid Juke Jam, folks *will* consider the Polaroid while consigning the unfamiliar name to the "Brand X" category.
That is why people *pay* for familiar names.
There is value in the name, which is why companies hanging on by the skin of their teeth look for endorsements or, conversely, farm out the brand.
In this case, the owners of the name get money *and* a bit of extra visibility.
Westinghouse is doing it too, in flat-panel TVs, as I'm sure you've noticed.

As for Apple, no, they're not there yet.
Nor are they likely to get there any time soon.
But as you yourself pointed out elsewhere, without the pod, they'd be darned close to it...
1.5% market share and shrinking...
The pod bloomed just in time...

[rzanology]

please allow me to say...the reviewers at cnet.com have been on crack for the past few months. It use to be before, i could read a cnet review...walce on down to J&R and it would hold true. Now i do the same, when i get to J&R, im left wondering what the hell cnet was talking about.

[Jason Dunn]

For what it's worth, I now avoid Polaroid products like the plague - I bought one of their DVD/VHS combo players because it supposed SVCDs, and ended up going through two of them because both were defective. The first ate a tape, the second one made very loud whirring noises. :roll: So no Polaroid for me thanks!

[Suhit Gupta]

please allow me to say...the reviewers at cnet.com have been on crack for the past few months. It use to be before, i could read a cnet review...walce on down to J&R and it would hold true. Now i do the same, when i get to J&R, im left wondering what the hell cnet was talking about.
I agree that the quality of their reviews have gone down a bit but do you really feel like they have gotten that bad? :?

Suhit