Kodak Charmera – a tiny digital camera that hangs on your keys

Your phone takes better photos than most cameras from 2010. And yet nobody at a party gets excited when you pull out your phone. They get excited when someone pulls out a camera the size of a lipstick.

That’s the whole idea of the Kodak Charmera. It’s a keychain camera that weighs 30 grams, shoots 1.6-megapixel photos and video, and comes in a blind box so you don’t know which design you’ll get. The photos are lo-fi, and that’s the point.

What is the Kodak Charmera?

It’s a real digital camera shrunk down to bag-charm size. Kodak doesn’t build it itself: the Charmera is made under license by Reto, a company from Hong Kong. The design is a nod to the Kodak Fling, the single-use camera Kodak launched in 1987.

It launched in September 2025 at about 30 bucks and reportedly sold out within a day. TechRadar’s reviewer even titled their piece “I should hate this camera but I’ve bought it several times”. Tom’s Guide called it the Happy Meal of cameras, which I think is a compliment.

On paper, here’s what you get:

• 1/4-inch CMOS sensor with 1440 x 1080 photos (1.6 MP)
• 35mm f/2.4 fixed lens, no zoom, no autofocus
• Video at 30 fps (AVI files)
• 4 vintage Kodak frames, 7 filters and a date stamp
• MicroSD slot (1 to 128 GB, card not included)
• USB-C charging, 200 mAh battery
• 58 x 24.5 x 20 mm, 30 grams

The blind box thing

Each box holds one of seven designs. Six are regular color schemes, and one is a “secret edition” with a clear shell that shows the camera’s insides. You find out which one you got when you open it.

It’s fun, and it’s also a clever way to make people buy a second one. One early buyer on Amazon admits they’re fighting the urge to buy another one just to get the color they wanted.

The good and the not-so-good

What I like:

• It’s cheap enough to give away without overthinking it.
• It clips onto a bag, so you actually carry it. A camera you leave at home takes zero photos.
• No app, no account, no cloud. Plug it into a computer with USB-C and it shows up as a drive (one UK buyer had to use a card reader on a Mac).
• The photos look like they came from a 2004 flip phone, and people love that right now.

What could be better:

• No memory card in the box. Without one it stores about two photos. Order a microSD card with it.
• Early buyers say battery life is short, and one reports about 20 photos before the first bar drops.
• Buyers say the tiny screen is hard to see, and the buttons are small.
• The keyring rattles, and one buyer says you can hear it in videos. Take it off when you film.
• There’s a small LED that tries to be a flash. It doesn’t try very hard.

Who is the Kodak Charmera for?

It’s a great gift for teens, for people who post “photo dumps”, and for anyone who misses the camera they had in high school. It also makes a good party camera to pass around.

Skip it if you want photos you can print big or crop. You’ll get far better results from your phone. If you like the idea of a “real” camera but want something less toy-like, have a look at the Paper Shoot camera. For kids, the myFirst Camera 10 is built for small hands. And if keychain gadgets are your thing, there’s also the Insert Coin arcade keychain.

Where can I buy the Kodak Charmera?

Kodak’s official listing on Amazon sells single blind boxes for about 30 to 35 bucks at the time of writing (October 2026). Bundles from other sellers add a memory card and a case. Handy, but compare them with a single box plus a cheap microSD card.

A camera on your keys that takes deliberately bad photos. Take my money!