PhotoFeature
The compact camera is back, and it isn’t just nostalgia
Phones take excellent pictures. So why are people in their twenties buying pocket cameras again?
By Hana Sato
Walk through any city on a weekend and you’ll spot them: small, dedicated cameras hanging from wrists, many of them models written off a decade ago. Prices for some used compacts have doubled in two years.
It’s about intention
The people we spoke to weren’t chasing better image quality — they know their phones are technically excellent. They wanted a device that does one thing, with no notifications, and photos that look like photographs rather than computational composites.
“My phone takes a picture of what happened. My camera takes a picture of how it felt.”
- Larger sensors give natural background blur without portrait-mode artefacts.
- Physical dials make settings tactile and fast.
- No feed and no notifications — just the shot.
Manufacturers have noticed. Several have revived compact lines this year, and one sold out its first production run in a weekend. The phone won the camera war. Plenty of people still want to lose it on purpose.
Written by
Hana Sato
Senior Mobile Writer
Hana covers phones, watches and cameras. Before joining Vector she spent six years as a mobile engineer, which makes her very hard to impress.
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