Kodak Slice: Ultra-thin touchscreen camera on sale now

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Every now and again, we hear about a camera that seems to stand from the rest and leaves wanting to know more.  The new Kodak Slice caused a few raised eyebrows as it's the manufacturer's first ultra-thin point-and-shoot that relies entirely on touchscreen controls.  It's on sale now.

On paper, the combination of a touchscreen and 5x zoom in a body that measures only 17 mm from front to back should allow the Slice to take a place in what is a growing segment.  Its photo and video capacities are fairly limited with a 14 Megapixel sensor behind a very slow 35-175 mm lens which only manages f/4.8 in wide-angle mode.  It does have stabilisation and shoots video at 720p HD, though.

Kodak's EasyShare range has long been marketed as a great way to share photos with family and friends, and this new camera allows you to tag your shots according to where you'd like to upload them to (Facebook, Flickr or YouTube) or whether you'd like them sent by e-mail.  As soon as you plug the camera into your computer, Kodak's proprietary software (which is only available for Windows and Mac) takes care of it all.

Another interesting features is the Slice's ability to act as a mobile album.  It uses 2 GB of internal memory to store low resolution 2 Megapixel versions of every photo you've taken so you can flick through them quickly and find the one you need.

The 3.5'' touchscreen marks a departure from other digital cameras, which have until now used resistive displays, by using capacitative technology.  We hope that Kodak will take advantage of the extra capability that this offers by building multi-touch gestures that are so common on modern phones into its interface; otherwise, there's not much point in switching to capacitative.

In short, we think that the Slice seems a pretty ordinary camera, but one that is attached to a powerful portable photo album.  We're looking forward to testing it soon.

Finally, there is one problem we should point out: the Slice uses microSD cards.  It's a very unusual decision because not only do Kodak's other cameras use normal SD cards, but its latest digital photo frame, the Pulse, can read just about any type of memory card ... apart from microSD.

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