3 days ago
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The Kodak Charmera Keychain Digital Camera is a tiny Kodak novelty that looks like a toy and sometimes behaves like one. It’s still the kind of device that can change how you shoot on a normal day, especially when you’re sick of chasing perfect files.
Coming to you from Anthony Gugliotta, this playful video follows Gugliotta buying a six-pack “mega carton” of Charmeras instead of a single blind box, mainly to chase the rare secret version. The packaging is the whole hook: you don’t pick your color, you reveal it, and that shifts the vibe from shopping to gambling in a way that’s hard to ignore. You watch him set an opening order, second-guess tiny print differences, and treat each box like a small event. If you’ve ever felt your gear choices turn sterile, this is the opposite of a spec-sheet decision. The video also gives you a clear sense of what “collectible camera” really means once the novelty wears off and the first files hit a screen.
Gugliotta then puts the Charmera into the real world with quick portraits and casual scenes, and the limitations show up fast. The camera reports a ridiculous remaining-photo count when you add a 128 GB microSD card, and the tiny live view makes composition feel like guesswork. There’s a noticeable delay after you press the shutter, which changes how you time expressions and gestures. The optical viewfinder is there, but it isn’t trustworthy, so you end up framing wide and hoping. You also see the built-in looks: warm, cool, black and white, plus frames that lean into the “toy camera” identity. If you tend to overthink camera settings, watching someone work around a device that barely gives you any control can reset your instincts in a useful way.
The video doesn’t pretend this is a serious image-making tool, and that’s where it gets interesting. Gugliotta calls out the headline specs without dressing them up: 1.6 megapixels, 1,440 x 1,080 capture, 30 fps video saved as AVI, USB-C charging, and a hard limit of 128 GB on storage. At around $34.99, the camera sits in an awkward spot where it’s cheap enough to be impulsive but expensive enough that you start asking what you’re buying besides the object. You’ll also catch a practical point that’s easy to miss: the Charmera pushes you toward vertical shooting habits even if you hate that, because the screen and framing feel cramped. The flash behavior is another wildcard, and the clip hints at the kind of unpredictable results you get when the camera makes decisions you can’t override. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Gugliotta.
English (US) ·