Kodak isn’t really a name that comes to mind when you think of smartphones, but the camera company has released an Android phone in the past, and now it’s got another one coming to market.
The Kodak Ektra is a new Android 6.0 smartphone, and like the Kodak IM5 before it, the Ektra places a focus on photography. The Ektra has a 21-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture, phase detection autofocus, optical image stabilization, and dual LED flash. There’s also a 13-megapixel camera on the front of the Ektra that has an f/2.2 aperture and phase detection autofocus.
Kodak also created a custom camera app for the Ektra. It includes an SLR-style Scene Selection Dial that’ll let you choose between settings like HDR, Landscape, Portrait, Macro, Sport, Night-time, Panorama, and Bokeh to get the right mode for your setting. There’s also a Smart Auto mode that’ll let the phone pick the best settings. And if you prefer full control when it comes to taking photos, the Ektra includes a manual mode, too.
Other camera-centric features of the Ektra include a dual press shutter button, a Super 8 app that’ll give you photo effects like Kodak’s Super 8 film stocks, a preloaded Snapseed app for photo editing, and a Prints app for getting your photos professionally printed.
Other features of the Kodak Ektra include a 5-inch 1920x1080 display, MediaTek Helio X20 deca-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. Powering the Ektra is a 3,000mAh battery that can be fast charged over USB Type-C.
The Kodak Ektra will launch across Europe later in 2016 at a price of £449 ($550 USD). Kodak says that the Ektra could come to the US in 2017 if there is enough demand for it.
The Ektra’s spec list is largely mid-range, but it does have beefy cameras on both its front and rear to help it appeal to shutterbugs. The inclusion of scene selection, a manual mode, and a dual press shutter button are all nice inclusions for a camera-centric smartphone, too. There’s a lot of competition when it comes to smartphone photography, though, and so we’ll have to wait and see how the Ektra stacks up to the cameras on the Galaxy S7, iPhone 7, and Google Pixel.