Kodak Slice Revealed [Kodak Adds First Touchscreen Digital Camera, Shoots 720p HD Video]

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It’s a bit hard to believe that camera giant Kodak, the company that invented digital photography, has yet to produce a digital camera with a touchscreen panel on the back, but alas, it’s true. At CES earlier this month, Kodak revealed the “Slice”, which’ll be their first touchscreen panel and will be capable of shooting 720p video.

The Slice is a sub-compact camera that looks very, very, thin. It features a sexy, all-black design and sports the 3.5-inch touchscreen on the back. It’ll have some amount of internal memory, as Kodak’s press release says it’ll hold up to 5,000 pictures, but unfortunately, for us tech guys, they don’t explicitly say, which is a bit disappointing. Those 5,000 could all be 50 x 50,who knows.

At any rate, with a big touchscreen on the back (as big as the iPhone’s, for comparison) Kodak has thrown in the KODAK SLICE search engine, which is pretty much a glorified photo album feature. Face tagging is also included, so you could tag your 5,000 thumbnail sized photos, then search them via the Kodak Slice’s touchscreen and show them to friends.

On the camera side, the CCD sensor comes in at a huge 14-megapixel, and it features a 5X Schneider Kreuznach lens (like you expected anything different). Image stabilization is included, of course, and the Slice is capable of shooting 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. No HDMI out, but it’s likely not a deal breaker here. Because it’s so thin, the Slice uses its own rechargeable Lithium Ion battery.

Kodak would never admit it, but it seems to me that the design goal for this camera was “smartphone, minus the phone, with a great camera”. The touchscreen is iPhone-sized, and Kodak has included a bunch of software for searching and viewing your pictures. It will go on sale in April 2010 for $350 (a bit high for a point-and-shoot, some have said).