The Vivitar Popsnap compact digital camera is a sobering product to consider. About a year ago it blew up as a TikTok camera, offering a yin to the yang that is the Fujifilm X100VI's similar social media success.
And yet, aside from both being compact cameras, the Vivitar Popsnap and the X100VI have nothing in common – despite both bearing the name of two of the imaging industry's biggest players.
It's entirely possible that the current generation isn't aware, but Vivitar is a storied photographic brand (which makes it sadder still that the Vivitar Popsnap compact digital camera is probably the most famous product to wear the name).
Starting in the late 1930s as an American distributor for German and Japanese photo equipment, in the 1960s the Vivitar brand was officially created to produce respected third-party lenses, flashguns and even 35mm film cameras made in conjunction with companies like Cosina, Tokina and Samyang.
As with so many analog-era brands, though, transitioning to the digital age was a step too far. Vivitar now joins the likes of Kodak and Agfa as once-leading brands whose names and logos are now licensed or owned by makers of cheap electronics.
In this case, the Vivitar Popsnap compact digital camera is made by Sakar International – bearing no relation to the proud lineage of Vivitar proper.
The Vivitar Popsnap is your typical cheap, generic compact camera – except the Vivitar name gives it enough cache for Walmart to charge $30 for it, rather than the $15 you can get the same model for without it.
For that princely sum you get a camera marketed as "44 mega pixel" despite having a pretty horrible 5MP sensor, with some of the nastiest 1080p video I've ever seen. And among the filters is "Over Expose", which might be the most audacious way to justify poor exposure ever seen in a camera.
To give the camera its due, the Vivitar Popsnap does have some built-in memory (a whopping 5MB, which is good for 100 shots) and a flash, and you can at least replace the battery. And the "Lomo" filter is surprisingly passable.
But still, it goes without saying that you shouldn't buy this camera. The Vivitar Popsnap compact digital camera is a slap in the face to Vivitar's legacy and takes worse photos and videos than the first webcam you ever owned.
This isn't retro or aesthetic, it's just plain bad. Seriously, spend that $30 on an old Canon digicam from eBay instead.
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