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Kodak Pix Pro C1: A Two-Minute Review
Compact cameras are suddenly in vogue, including simple pocket-sized point-and-shoot cameras, and Kodak is riding the wave with the PixPro C1. It’s beautiful, it’s cheap and it looks like the perfect antidote to complicated mirrorless cameras or expensive smartphones. But can this cheap camera be any good?
Sadly, it doesn’t take long to answer that question. The Pix Pro C1 is very plasticky, as you’d expect at this price, but it looks the part and has a flip-up selfie screen and a basic but effective set of controls that make it easy to use. That is the problem.
The C1 uses a very small 13MP 1/1.3-inch sensor of unknown vintage that exhibits all the characteristics of old point-and-shoot cameras that we’ve conveniently forgotten, with image quality that’s fine in good light but falls apart quickly if you need to use high ISO in low light or if you use digital zoom.
Yes, it’s a digital zoom, not optical. A small sensor’s image quality is already stretched to the limit in perfect conditions, so digital zoom only extends its limits. At the maximum 4x zoom setting you get images that might look fine on a phone screen, but not so much on a tablet and certainly not in a printout. You’re really better off sticking to the native focal length, and at 26mm, it’s pretty wide, like the main camera on a phone.
Another major problem with this camera is its slow response. Single (center) point autofocus can take half a second or a second to lock, and when you press the shutter release there’s another second delay while the screen goes black… and then you get the shutter sound. It’s very difficult to time your exposures with moving subjects, and the Kodak’s thin, slippery form makes it difficult to hold steady – there’s no image stabilization.
So on the outside the Kodak Pix Pro C1 is pretty slick, but inside it uses tech that could have come straight from an old phone or a very cheap point-and-shoot compact from ten years ago. This is very disappointing.
Kodak Pix Pro C1: Price
- Price is $99 / £79 / au $154
- USB cable and wrist strap included
- Available now
The Kodak Pix Pro C1 retails for around $99 // £79 (about £154). That doesn’t seem like much for a fully functional pocket-sized digital camera, but it’s a lot to spend on something you won’t end up using because your smartphone is so much better. This price does not include a memory card, although our sample included a microSD card and a card reader, so bundles may vary.
Kodak Pix Pro C1: Specs
Type: | Pocket-sized compact camera |
Sensor: | 13MP 1/1.3-in CMOS |
Glasses: | 3.57mm (26mm equivalent) f/2, up to 4x digital zoom |
Focus range: | 0.6m-infinity, 0.08m macro |
ISO: | 100-1600 |
Video | Up to 1920×1080 60fps |
Storage: | MicroSD, up to 32 GB |
EVF: | No |
Durability: | No |
Flash/Light: | made |
screen: | 180-degree tilt, 2.8 in, 230k-dot |
Battery: | Built, non-removable, 200 shots approx |
Size: | 103 x 60 x 20.3 mm, 115 grams |
Kodak Pix Pro C1: Design
- Slim, light, smart styling
- Feels plastic but quite solid for the price
- Memory card slot exposed in base – no door
- Phone Style LED ‘Flash’
We forget how small point and shoot cameras were! The Kodak Pix Pro C1 will slip easily into a shirt pocket or trouser pocket, and since it weighs just 115 grams, you’ll hardly know it’s there. It’s available in black or tan or gray finishes – mine came in brown, and it looks great.
It feels plastic when you pick it up, however, especially around the back where the screen and controls are. The top edge of the screen has a hinge so you can flip it to face forward for selfies, and on the right you’ve got a four-way controller, menu, playback, mode and record buttons, as well as a rocker for zoom.
You can shoot in full auto mode, switch to program mode for a bit more control, or use a small selection of ‘scene’ modes. The menu button shows options for picture styles, metering pattern, resolution (only if you want less than 13 megapixels!), white balance and continuous vs single shot mode. The menus are basic but clear.
The flash has a built-in—well, sort of, because it’s actually a phone-style LED, but that’s okay. At the bottom, in the base of the camera, you’ll find the memory card slot, which takes a microSD card. There’s no door or cover of any kind—the card just pushes into the slot, where it’s flush with the base so you can still stand the camera on a flat surface.
It’s all very basic but effective, and exactly what you’d expect from a cheap camera. It is also not difficult for beginners.
Kodak Pix Pro C1: Performance
- Slow shutter action
- Poor image quality at high ISOs
- Cannot use digital zoom
- Autofocus struggles/fails in low light
Physically, the Pix Pro C1 is pretty decent at this price. It is the performance that is disappointing. You could argue that you shouldn’t expect too much for that money, but there comes a point where a product just isn’t good enough to use, regardless of how cheap it is, and the Pix Pro C1 is about as close as it gets here.
Before you even look at its images, its operation feels clunky and slow. AF isn’t particularly fast, but the worst part is the shutter action, which takes a second to complete and only makes the shutter sound at the end. This is not a camera for fast action or holding shots. Not only this, the rear screen becomes quite difficult to see in bright light.
As for the pictures… well, it depends on what you’re expecting. The resolution, dynamic range and noise are just what you’d expect from a small sensor from the old days, and not what a modern smartphone camera array would produce. In good outdoor light where you don’t need a high ISO and the risk of camera shake is minimal, the images are fine. But at high ISOs in poor light detail smoke and object edges get hyper-processed and things just aren’t great.
If you use the zoom, you’ll quickly realize that the 13MP sensor can’t really handle a lot of cropping. Or any crop, to be honest.
I tried ‘Flash’ indoors. There’s nothing wrong with the light, but it only comes out when the camera has focused, and in my tests the autofocus struggled if it’s too dark, and the flash didn’t help much without sharp focus.
Should you buy the Kodak Pix Pro C1?
If you buy it…
If you don’t buy it…
Also consider
How I Tested the Kodak Pix Pro C1
- I tested it over a period of two weeks
- I tested it with multiple subjects and lighting conditions
- I also evaluated its responsiveness and ease of use
I’ve had the Kodak Pix Pro C1 for a few weeks, which has given me the opportunity to try it out in all kinds of situations where such a camera can be used, including outdoor shots, close-ups, indoor scenes and pet photos. I wanted to give it every chance to show what it could do and how it would react to normal point and shoot situations.
Obviously I wasn’t expecting high image quality, just images that were good enough for the purpose. I felt that Kodak needed to prove that it was better than a smartphone or at least as good. Most of the populace already owns a smartphone with a decent camera, so Kodak needed to bring something else to the table.
It’s not just image quality that matters, but overall handling, usability and responsiveness, and that’s how I approached the PixPro C1.
- First reviewed November 2025
1 Comment
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