I tried Fujifilm’s new tiny retro compact camera – but the adorable palm-sized design isn’t even the best part

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Compact cameras in retro designs are trending – but Fujifilm's newest camera takes both trends to the extreme. The Fujifilm Instax Pal 2 is a camera tiny enough to disappear in my palm, yet is jam-packed with classic controls and not one but two viewfinders.

Fujifilm sent me the Pal 2, and when the package arrived, I had no idea what was inside. When I opened the box, I probably sounded like a fangirl backstage at a concert. Weighing 41g – that's less than 1.5 ounces – the Pal 2 is absolutely tiny, yet carries an utterly classic look. It may just be the most adorable camera that I've ever shot with.

But despite the small size, Fujifilm has managed to fit not one, but two retro-styled viewfinders on this camera. The first is a classic optical viewfinder, no screen, just a classic cutout. But the Pal 2 also has a tiny one-inch screen at the top that doubles as a waist-level finder. Of course, a real retro waist-level finder was optical too, but managing to fit both an optical viewfinder and a waist-level, albeit electronic, viewfinder is engineering genius.

The Pal 2 looks so unlike the original Pal that I'm a bit surprised Fujifilm didn't give it a different name. The original was a bubbly little thing that had a keychain hook, no screen, and no controls beyond a shutter button.

The Pal 2 has a lever reminiscent of a film wind lever that switches from standard to shots with a digital Instax frame around them. A dial on the opposite side of the top screen switches through the different built-in film simulation presets, which include black-and-white, a soft diffusion look, and even a mode that digitally adds lens flare.

Using the app, those default presets can be swapped out for a different collection, with the camera supporting six different effects at a time.

As one of Instax's more affordable digital options, the Pal 2 is as tiny on specs as it is on size. The sensor is a 1/3.06 size that shoots up to 10MP. While that's small, that's notably better than the specs on the popular Instax Mini Evo .

The resulting photos are more for the trend towards early 2000s digital cameras than for the modern look – it's not going to shoot better photos than a smartphone. I'd put the image quality above the Kodak Charmera , but behind the Camp Snap CS-Pro .

There's, disappointingly, some shutter lag to the Pal 2 that can make it challenging to get perfectly timed shots. There's also a "burst mode," but this new mode is built to create a flipbook-style animation out of up to 10 frames.

One of the things that the Pal 2 shares in common with the original is that it's one of the few Instax products that doesn't actually use instant film. The camera is too small to fit in a printer. Instead, there's built-in Bluetooth that connects directly to Instax printers without needing a smartphone, including the Instax Wide Link 2 that Fujifilm also announced on September 14.

While the Pal 2 doesn't need a smartphone to print, the tiny cam does connect to the Instax Pal app. Beyond the wireless connection, I didn't even need a cord, as there's a pop-out USB-C that plugs into a smartphone just like a thumb drive. There's even enough built-in memory for up to 100 photos in addition to a microSD card slot.

Of course, the design isn't the only thing that's different from the first generation – the price sits a bit higher as well. The Pal 2 is expected to retail for $170 / £144.99 / CA$220 / AU$249. Shipping is estimated to begin in late September.

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