I bought my first digital camera in 2003: a Pentax Optio S. It was sluggish, had a small backscreen with low resolution and a noisy 3.2 MP sensor. It cost me around USD$ 450. It was amongst the best digital point & shoots one could get back then.

Fast forward to 2025 and I got this plastic digital toy camera from my daughter, her birthday gift to me. It puts a smile on my face. I assume it cost less than USD$ 50. And that’s already a stretch, it was probably far less. But for the sake of this conversation let’s keep it like this.

I’ve been playing with this camera and I can tell you it is quite amazing for what it is. No, I’m not reviewing a toy camera here and no, image quality is not good, not better than the aforementioned Pentax Optio S.

But just saying this: it has a bigger backscreen with higher resolution, movie mode, art filters, fun filter, MP3 player and even games like Tetris and Snake. And oh, it has an extra back lens for selfies.

(Talking of which, when the Pentax Optio S was launched the word selfie was not even part of our lexicon).

All this packed in a toy camera and probably costing 10x less than the Pentax Optio S.

This is how technology works and it’s quite amazing.