Kodak launches its first Android smartphone, the photo-centric IM5

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Published 6 Jan 2015

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S VEGAS—Kodak is primarily known for its film paper for traditional cameras, but now it wants a piece of the Android smartphone market.

At CES, the company unveiled the IM5, a mid-range phone with “user-friendly” tweaks to Android geared toward faster picture-taking image editing.

The smartphone has a five-inch 720p screen, octa-core 1.7 GHz processor (the exact model was not mentioned), 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for expansion. Of course Kodak wants you to pay attention to the camera – it features a 13 Mrear camera 5 Mon the front. The camera internal specs aren’t anything spectacular, so Kodak is hoping to win buyers over with its Android tweaks, which include image management software a curated, separate app store (although it does also include ay).

Kodak says the phone runs Android 4.4.4, but will eventually get the upgrade to llipop.

The IM5 looks pretty sleek, with a solid black color scheme a metal trim. There aren’t any specifics about when it will hit the U.S., as it’s slated to head to Europe sometime in the first quarter of 2015 eventually come stateside.

y this matters: This is the next step in Kodak’s reinvention from its days as a camera king. The build quality of the IM5 seems solid enough, but it’s disappointing to see a phone launch without the latest version of Android with another custom interface. Android is fragmented enough, another proprietary app store set of Android tweaks just aren’t necessary given how effective well-designed Android has come to be with llipop.