I ♥ my Charmera

I first saw the Kodak Charmera on a video from Sweet Lou Photography. I didn't think much about it, except it was cute and that it would make a nice gift idea for a friend of mine that does the photographer as his daily job.

I kind of forgot about it for a few months, then I saw it again online and I thought "hey, this could be fun".
I had a quick look around and I bought it on eBay for 36€, shipping included. Actually I bought two of them, I plan to gift one to my girlfriend's sister.
I also needed to buy a couple of microSD card, since I didn't have any old one laying around. I scored a couple of SanDisk Extreme PRO 32 GB for 15€ each shipped. They are absolutely overkill for the Charmera (at the moment the Charmera says I can still save 99999 photos on mine), but they were the best price I could find.

Since the Charmera comes in a mystery box I was worried about getting a color I didn't like. I found the rare one (1 possibility every 48, instead of the usual 1 every 6 for other colors), even if I wasn't yearning for one. Initially I tried to resell it online, since I saw many sold for over 150€ on eBay. It didn't gain any attention, even after lowering the price a couple of times, so after a few days I told my self "heck, I bought it for fun, not for collecting or to make money on it, let's use it!"

As you would expect it takes terrible photos. But it doesn't really matters. It's fun to use, it's tiny, it's super easy and fast to shoot. I didn't try to take any videos yet, but I heard they will be horrendous, with the worst audio ever :-D

Of course the pictures resemble the ones from the early 2000s consumer digital cameras or the first phones (they weren't called smartphones back then).
Internal menu could be a little better but after setting the date and format the microSD the first time I only use it to navigate among the last pictures taken via the small digital display.
The viewfinder it's just a hole for show and with every pic you take the Charmera makes an analog shutter sound like they use to do. There is even a white LED light acting as the flash - again, just for show - that "fires" when the light is low.

The box include a flyer, a cardboard with a QR core for the instructions¹ and a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging and to connect the Charmera to a computer.
For sharing purposes I find more immediate to use an USB-C to USB-C cable and to connect it directly to my iPhone and browsing the photos via the Files app.
The smartphone can also act as a powerbank if you are in need of using the Charmera while it's low on battery.
To switch the Charmera from USB mode to charging only mode and vice-versa you have to switch it off and on again while it's connected to the smartphone, at least in my experience.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I couldn't really ask anything more from it. I didn't rated it 5 stars just because I'm worried I will not use it much in the future, but hey, it was 36€ shipped!

Bottom line: It's tiny, it's cute, it's cheap, it's fun.

#review