Hands-on with the Kodak Instamatic 5

An old-school brand meets new-ish Android, but don't let your grandparents be wooed

The reports of Kodak's death have been greatly exaggerated. Or at least been made premature. The Bullitt Group has licensed the Kodak name and today at CES in Las Vegas is officially unveiling the Instamatic 5 Android smartphone — erm, camera.

As far as phones go, it's a pretty basic number. The Instamatic 5 (speaking of iconic names) has a 5-inch IPS display at 720p. It's running a MediaTek octa-core CPU at 1.7 GHz, pushing a custom build of Android 4.4.2 — it'll be updated to Lollipop, the company says. The UI is extremely basic, and that's pretty much the point of the phone. It's meant to be simple for taking and sharing pictures.

In fact, anything you shoot can be automatically added to your lock screen. No muss, no fuss. (You do have control over this stuff, though, for those private times that perhaps are best left unseen by the rest of us. The launcher has large, clearly labeled buttons, with Print, Gallery and Camera featured at the bottom — so you know this is a Kodak device.

And if you're anything like me, your older relatives might see be tempted by the Kodak name. You must help them resist.

The camera, by the way, is a 13-megapixel shooter with autofocus and flash. the front-facing camera is 5 megapixels. Storage is a bit anemic at 8 gigabytes, but you can add to that with an SD card.

The phone's light. Really light. But that's really the best thing this overly plastic piece of plastic has going for it. The Kodak Instamatic 5 will be available in Europe toward the end of the first quarter for around $249.

Your money's probably better spent elsewhere, though.