Kodak's 2004 entry digicam — 3.2MP CCD, fixed-focus 37mm equivalent f/4.5 lens, AA power, SD/MMC
The Kodak EasyShare CX7300 was announced in February 2004 as the fixed-lens entry point of Kodak's refreshed CX7000-series, sitting below the CX7330 zoom and CX7430. It was one of the cheapest routes into digital photography that year and sold in large numbers, often bundled with Kodak printer docks.
The camera uses a 3.2-megapixel CCD producing 2096x1560 images through a fixed-focus 37mm-equivalent f/4.5 lens, focusing from about 0.8m to infinity, with 3x digital zoom. There is a 1.6-inch 61,000-pixel LCD, 16MB of internal memory with an SD/MMC slot, and it records 30-second 320x240 video clips at 15fps without sound. Power is two AA batteries, and it weighs about 147g without them.
As a fully automatic snapshot camera the CX7300 is simple, sturdy and slow, with the saturated Kodak CCD colour that gives these files their period feel. It suits beginners in the digicam-collecting hobby and buyers wanting the cheapest possible working CCD compact rather than image quality or speed.
These sell for very little, so favour clean examples: check the AA compartment for leaked-battery damage, confirm images write to an SD/MMC card, and inspect the small LCD for bleed. The fixed-focus lens has no motor to fail, which helps survival rates — many examples still work perfectly on fresh AAs.