When You Mate a Ricoh GXR With a Sony QX, You Get the Vivitar IU680

Last Updated on 01/13/2014 by Felix Esser

At CES 2014, one of the less exciting items we found were these Kodak-branded lens-camera devices that seem to mimic the Sony QX cameras. But apparently, JK Imaging wasn’t the only company that wanted a piece of the smartphone add-on camera cake. Photo Rumors now reports of the Vivitar IU680, another lens-camera smartphone add-on, but this one is admittedly a bit different.

In fact, we think the Vivitar IU680 looks like the bastard child of a Ricoh GXR and a Sony QX camera … it’s a lens-camera add-on that works with your smartphone or tablet, but just like the Ricoh GXR, it features interchangeable lens+sensor modules. Most strikingly though, these lens+sensor modules look remarkably similar to those that are used on Sakar’s Polaroid-branded Android-powered system cameras …

While we have to give it to Vivitar that they came up with a slightly different version of Sony’s QX camera, it is till just that: a slightly different version of Sony’s QX camera. And we keep up the sentiment that the Kodak and Polaroid brands are being used for all kinds of less-than-mediocre stuff that puts the names of these two once so dominant and influential companies to shame.

There’s no word yet on either pricing or availability of the Vivitar IU680.