Kodak Ektra (opens in new tab)

<armchair> There's a missed opportunity here... this is not a smartphone, because as a phone, it will suck. It's a smartcamera, because as a point-and-shoot running Android with a cellular data connection, it will probably be quite cool. As mentioned already, Nokia tried the "photography first" smartphonecamera - it didn't fly. Because, honestly, iPhones are already top of the line smartphonecameras. The cameras are ridiculously good, all things considered. Kodak should realize there's no point in attempting to get people to trade in their iPhone for one of these - they should focus on making this the other accessory you want to have in addition to your iPhone. Like a Kindle. You CAN read stuff on your phone, but there's a better experience to be had. You CAN take pictures and video on your phone but... there's a better experience to be had? Maybe. I'm not entirely convinced the same kind of value can be added at a price that's worth paying before just up and getting a DSLR. But, that's my take on this whole thing. </armchair>

    > Edit photos anywhere with Snapseed™

The "before" and "after" images [0] are completely different photographs!

[0]: http://www.kodak.com/KodakGCG/uploadedImages/Consumer/Produc...

Their "Specs" link at the bottom 404s! Ow.

Much more info in this blog post: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/Consumer/Press_Center/KODAK_EKTRA...

KODAK EKTRA Smartphone key features:

    * ANDROID 6.0 (Marshmallow)
    * Professional results from a 21MP fast focus camera sensor with F2.0,
      PDAF, OIS, Dual LED Flash
    * 13MP phase detection auto focus front-facing camera with F2.2 PDAF
    * Helio X20 2.3GHz Decacore processor with 3GB RAM
    * 32GB memory, expandable with MicroSD cards
    * Advanced Manual Mode – adjustable on Exposure, ISO,
      Focal Length (Manual/Auto), White Balance,
      Shutter Speed, Aperture (fixed f2.0 main camera)
    * Familiar scene selection dial experience – includes scene modes
      Smart Auto, Portrait, Manual, Sports, Bokeh, * Night-time, HDR,
      Panorama, Macro, Landscape, Film / Video
    * Integrated high quality printing app
    * Super 8 Video Recorder
    * Integrated social media sharing
    * 3000mAh, with USB 3.0 Type C fast charger

Edit: Another separate product page, this one has a WORKING "before/after" panorama example: http://www.kodakphones.com/ektra/

Edit 2: Their "super 8" is just a filter. Scroll down on the page above to see.

Their web content is really disjointed...

Didn't Nokia try this already?

I'm pretty sure the camera world has settled into two kinds of cameras: cell phones for people who just need to take a few snaps, and DSLRs for people who need more features than can possibly fit in a cameraphone (flash hotshoe, changeable lenses, larger sensor, etc). DSLRs are cheap enough that cost isn't really an issue.

I doubt the results here will be any better than Nokia had.

Odd choice for the name, since Kodak also has a color negative film called "Ektar" [0] which is just a single transposition away from this new phone's name.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ektar

I understand that Kodak is probably "dipping their toe in the water with this model," but 32GB is not enough storage.

I'd like to know more about the phone, though. Is it a good phone? I mean, is it a good phone? The concept of a phone that's also a quality Kodak camera is cool, but at the end of the day, I'd like to know that it's also great at doing everything else I do with my phone.

Also, does it have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack?

Argh... For a second or two I thought to myself: perhaps this camera phone will have a lens with a sane focal length!

But nope, massive wide angle at 26.5mm equiv once again. How about an actual general purpose lens at 35mm (or above 35mm) equiv for once? Some of the older iPhones were around 33mm if i recall things correctly, but all the (one lens) iPhones that now supports shooting DNG are stuck with a ~28mm lens.

/Frustrated photographer

I absolutely love these platforms for travel.

I have a similar model (a Panasonic/Leica Android phone). It has a very large sensor and sim tray. As result I can run a local sim in WiFi hotspot mode for my primary iPhone and still get great photos with a 2-in-1 device.

The photo quality is fantastic and it beats having to carry a small mirrorless camera around. Being able to run Photoshop Lightroom right on the device is great for touching up your best shots as you are on the bus or train between destinations.

That said, I don't know how viable the platform is for the mainstream market. Panasonic revved my model to drop the sim. So I think they saw sales were weak. The introduction of the Moto Z with the Hasselblad lens and now this Kodak model gives me hope as I love, love, love these camera/hotspots.

While it may seem an irrelevant detail, the camera-like leatherette case that flips or snaps open like the old camera cases did, not only made me smile but gave me hope that they were clued in enough to their market as to make it a success.

wait, this is a DSLR?

Why would they do that instead of mirrorless?

I think they are doing the right thing. Taking pictures is a core feature of smartphone usage and smartphones took a lot of camera-marketshare. Vacations have become much more enjoyable since people don't have to carry the international sign of gullibility around their neck, the tourist's camera, that also weighs more than a phone, costs at least as much and has a terrible OS.

I too think though that Kodak can't be superior on smartphone stuff. At least not on their first iterations. But having the stomach to pursue such a dramatic and pragmatic shift in as how to perceive their product says a lot. Either about the company's future prospects or of how much they are on their last legs.

I'm curious what exactly will the "haptic touch" technology of the dial be? Do you know of any consumer-grade products with (hopefully) non-buzzer haptic feedback on touchscreen available on the market yet?

I had to look up the SoC used, it's MediaTek's Helio X20 with ten cores: http://mediatek-helio.com/x20/. The cores are:

    2x Cortex-A72 @ 2.1GHz ~ 2.3GHz
    4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.85GHz
    4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.4GHz

That sure is a lot of cores (and the rest of the features sound nice too, like the support for a 32 megapixel camera). Quite the impressive piece of technology to put in a phone-sized form factor, really.

This is actually an interesting product, but is there a reason they wouldn't make the aperture f/1.8 like the iPhone?

I'm not aware if there may be downsides or hardware limitations to that. If cost is the only issue, it would seem worth it if you're making a photography-focused camera just to get as much light as possible into that sensor.

Edit: Thanks for the information, fellow HNers :)

I don't understand... how is this different from any other large-screen Android 6+ device being built right now with a similarly high-res spec camera?

The before and after pictures (mountains) are two completely different pictures. Is the trick that your photo gets substituted by a better one? That would actually be not a bad thing...

Anyway, this has got nothing to do with kodak cameras whatsoever, just licensing a brand name.

Lots of negativity here. This is a really smart move.

I take a decent amount of photographs, and shoot enough photos at events around other photographers to see the next generation coming up. A surprising amount of these photographers are using live view on DSLRs, just because they're "graduating" out of smartphone photography. (Live view generally has a number of disadvantages compared to the optical viewfinder; it's a pretty bad habit).

These photographers are used to framing their shots on a screen, and have muscle memory built around holding a device like a smartphone. Giving them better sensors--and not changing much else about their shooting experience--is a very wise decision...

My knee-jerk reaction was to want this, but the more I thought about the product, it really would be for someone wanting a good camera on the go, but not enough to warrant a better separate camera, AND willing to deal with a worse smartphone experience.

That's not me unfortunately.

"Always. Be. Ready."

I really hate these periods. I despise them. It's stupid, please stop.

Also, under "Push what's possible"... why are the 'before' and 'after' image two different photos? What is that supposed to prove?

If Kodak really wants to make a killer product, they should focus on battery life at the expense of size (within reason, of course).

Specs page: Nonexistent.

Details page: Nonexistent.

Cost hint: Nonexistent.

I've seen Kickstarters more compelling.

Scrolling is completely broken on iPhone safari

Kodak unfortunately self destructed and the business was sold. This seems to be an initiative by the new owners and given the positioning one would expect much more details about the sensor size, sensor type and lens.

Kodak has a wonderful history with the now out of favour CCD camera sensors. The first digital Leica's all used Kodak CCD sensors and are still highly rated. Sony is now among the leading makers of CMOS sensors for both cameras and cell phones and nearly all current cellphones use Sony sensors.

Phones of course cannot compare to larger sensor cameras but they have made great strides and at least knocked off the lower rung of camera market that sported small sensors.

The positioning has potential but this is something Samsung, Apple and other phone makers are already focussed on. The absence of details could make this more positioning and less product and completely fail to register in a market dominated by decent phone cameras in the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7.

It has phase detection at least. Something sorely missing from these camera phone/phone cameras is an internal optical zoom so that the lens barrel never protrudes from the body - like the Pentax Optio WS80 which uses a prism so that the optics/elements move along the x rather than z axis inside the camera body. Apple filed a patent for such a thing a year or so ago, but they've also filed patents for all kinds of shit that has never seen the light of day.

Calling the 56mm second lens on the iPhone 7 an "optical zoom" is taking things a bit far. I guess calling it a prime portrait lens would leave more than a few people scratching their heads.

Since they don't mention the sensor size I assume it will be barely bigger than that of an average smartphone. So I expect the image quality to be underwhelming. There was the Lumix CM1 and it wasn't a huge hit so I don't know why this would sell well since it doesn't look like it's doing anything better.

I am not sure how much "smarter" this is than a camera taped on a phone [0].

If the DSP chip itself were programmable from the phone then one could do all sorts of tricks just by downloading new "firmware" over the air.

I doubt that is the case here though. It looks like this saves me from copying files to share then on Instagram and that's about it.

Someone please make a camera that costs the same as a high-end smart phone, but the DSP chip is open and documented. Why is that not a thing?

[0] http://media.e2save.com/images/community/2013/06/tumblr_m7bf...

EDIT: link

Since I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in the thread, anytime I see the name Kodak Ektra I think of the world-class 35mm camera that Kodak made in the 1940s.

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Ektra

So the use of the name is banking on that association with those in the know. I would be writing a ream of criticism here of the use of the name to associate the new product with the original if Kodak themselves hadn't diluted it to meanlessness by releasing a line of 110 film cameras with the same name.

The only thing i can remember about Kodak phones is that The Verge tried the first Kodak phone last year at CES 2015 and it was a disaster. It had a horrible Android skin on that made it look like old Nokia phones Hope they upped their game with this one.

1st Kodak phone at CES 2015 http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7498999/ces-2015-kodak-phon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPadMS75i48

On-screen controls will always be substandard. It's confusing, because every company should know what works, based on about 30 years of iterative design changes. Yet here we are, adapting the rotating mode dial into a digital interface. You will not grok this camera.

Things that would get my attention: Hardware slider that can be mapped to ISO/aperture/shutter speed, ideally dynamically. Hardware AF/MF switch, and AE/AF lock options. Focus peaking.

Wow only a 5" screen, BUT with full HD resolution and a 3000mAh battery?? Can't get that anywhere! I know many HNers besides me appreciate a phone on the smaller side. Usually that means the screen stays at 720p (Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy * Mini, Sony Xperia Compact) and the battery suffers (Galaxy alpha has only 1800mAh.) $550 is not a mini price, though. I'll hold out for a couple good reviews.

The real potential with this lies with the photo editing and viewing suite -- even if it's camera first there's not really many 'smart cameras' are there? there's just a lot of potential in having extra buttons. imo, simplicity of UI/UX is becoming a tiresome idea now that the ability to operate a smartphone has been mainstreamed at this point. power to the new players.

Interesting that during their bankruptcy restructuring they were exiting the digital camera business, and now here we go another digital camera, I think it would be hilarious if you could download a "phone" app for it :-).

Seems like a lot of work for a point-and-shoot. The "interest" outside of the phone camera space seems to be in the 4/3 space. And this isn't one.

Doesn't look like it'll be able to do anything that any good Android phone with a good sensor/lens can't.

BTW some Mediatek chips were meant to be able to do 480fps 1080p video with certain Sony sensors.. did it ever work out beyond marketing promises?

Talk about desperate.

Why didn't they just skip the phone part? I could see myself buying one of these. But the fact that it'd make little (financial) sense to buy one and then have it replace my phone (let's be real here, Kodak), it's a no-go.

As much as I like the idea, from the side profile it looks like it'd be really difficult to carry around in a back pocket and could snag on the lens bump when trying to put it back in a pocket.

I like the subtle f*ck you to MGMT 101 classes here .... or the attempt to.

What is the camera sensor model and manufacturer? So far based on hardware features list it doesn't look like a photo oriented smartphone, but more like a regular Androind based phone.

Looks like we may have a camera with the option of being a phone instead of a phone that has a camera..

Looks interesting and it is nice to not have to carry around multiple devices.

How much does it cost?

I thought the iPhone 7 camera lens bump was bad until I saw this.

They might be too late to the game with this one. I do like the 3GB of RAM though.

It had better have superior photog specs than the newest iphones otherwise it's dead in the water

Seems cool. But they cant do very good mobile page. Laggy scrolling and jumpy loading on G4.

This is the smartphone I have always wanted.... they just forgot to make it a smartphone.

What's the max frame rate for the 4k capture mode?

I honestly thought Kodak was out of business.

No mention of sensor size?

I want this very badly.

A good gift

if priced ok, a disposable camera

a good way to be able to take pics and LEAVE YOUR PHONE AND CONNECTED LIFE.

Fun fact: The digital camera was invented at Kodak (an American company) that has since gone bankrupt.

Here is a list of Japanese companies that currently all make excellent digital cameras:

  * Canon
  * Nikon
  * Sony (which bought Konica Minolta)
  * Fujifilm (Kodak's main competitor in the film market)
  * Olympus
  * Panasonic
  * Pentax/Ricoh

Discuss.