Kodak has announced a new smartphone named after its legend 35mm camera of 1941 “Ektra” – the Kodak Ektra Smartphone running Android mobile platform.
Kodak, once a mighty camera company, got below the surface first by not adapting the digital photography in time (which in fact it invented) and then the camera smartphones pushed it further down. But now it looks like the camera company is trying hard to catch up to the market’s demand in today’s date.
During last year’s CES, Kodak first introduced a camera smartphone IM5 which didn’t attract market as such but now the Ektra smartphone rather seems to be impressive with its photography expertise as well as its performance hardware.
Kodak Ektra smartphone has the looks of a digital camera with a large lens hump which is said to come with its features. With the faux-leather skin and metal-like plastic frame the phone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and is powered by a MediaTek Helio X20 SoC with the first 2.3GHz deca-core processor, along side it features 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory with support of expandable microSD card slot.
In addition, Kodak Ektra smartphone features a 5″ display with FHD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels serving at pixel density of 441ppi. Backed by a 3000mAh battery, phone seems to last moderately. Kodak is providing genuine leather case accessory for the phone.
Camera – that’s what the imaging pioneer is focusing on this piece of mobile hardware. Well that could do a good job with the support of other hardware specs above. On the back, there is 21-megapixel camera sensor with phase detection auto focus (PDAF) and f/2.0 lens aperture with optical image stabilization (OIS). There’s a dual-LED flash as well. 8 megapixel camera is what on the front, that too is autofocus (PDAF) camera and features a f/2.2 lens aperture.
Kodak Ektra smartphone features Advanced Manual Mode in camera app for primary camera that allows users to manually adjust Exposure, ISO, Focal Length (Manual/Auto), White Balance, Shutter Speed. Aperture is fixed at f/2.0.
4K video recording is also the key element of the phone which with the help of Kodak’s Super 8 Video Recorder provides “professional effects reminiscent of Kodak’s iconic Super 8 film stocks.”
Now that we know the company’s selling point of the Ektra smartphone is its camera which is 21 megapixel. But to be specific it’s a Sony IMX230 image sensor which is quiet old now and smartphones like Google Pixel which is featuring IMX378 and is currently standing at top of the photography charts. For that reason, Ektra smartphone might not compete the recent high-end flagships in picture quality, however the simplicity and expertise of control over the advanced camera features would be plus point for the Kodak camera smartphone.
There is not much detail disclosed yet by the company, even the sample shots above are not even in their full resolutions with EXIF information that could show us how they been shot. What they show is actually the expertise of the photographer(s) just like what we see from other manufacturers when the release sample shots of their cameras.
The Kodak Ektra smartphone will launch first in the UK for the price of £449 (or PKR ~58,000/- or ~$550) and later this year in Europe. The company may go across other regions in early 2017 depending on the market’s interest.
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