Pentax WG1000

The new WG1000 is SAME like Kodak Pixpro WPZ2. Same OEM camera, just a bit different housing. And that Kodak with horrible lens is now dominating Japanese compact camera market..

strange times

Sad isn't it. And as for the 'Kodak' brand, whoever owns the name now I have no idea, who do they think they are fooling with the old respected marque? Sigh. It's depressing, all this.

Similar with Konica, who used to be respected brand in past, but now some HK company is using the name and they are selling basically scam cameras and some binocular with "camera". But better webcam does more usable images.

AndroC said:

Sad isn't it. And as for the 'Kodak' brand, whoever owns the name now I have no idea, who do they think they are fooling with the old respected marque? Sigh. It's depressing, all this.

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Eastman Kodak still owns the brand name AFAIK, but they license it out to other companies. The licensee of the Kodak brand for digital cameras is JK Imaging, an American sales/marketing company which is basically acting as a front for Taiwanese manufacturer Asia Optical.

Incidentally, Asia Optical used to make compact cameras for Eastman Kodak, so in that sense there's a continuity between the real and pretend Kodaks.

xmeda said:

The new WG1000 is SAME like Kodak Pixpro WPZ2. Same OEM camera, just a bit different housing. And that Kodak with horrible lens is now dominating Japanese compact camera market..
strange times

Click to expand...

Not that you seem to be a potential buyer, but let me point out at least one critical difference. The "Kodak" takes microSD with a 32Gb max capacity while the Pentax takes a regular SD card. I'm using a 128Gb Samsung Pro card in mine.

An inexpensive camera that can survive being given to kids at the beach pretty much sells itself. The kids aren't pixel peeping in Lightroom, not a big mystery why it's popular.

There's also a small demographic of buyers who actually want the lo-fi look of a horrible lens, as a counterpoint to the oversharpened iPhone snap. They're after images that are more like compacts from the old days. Yes, this is a thing.