The Situation With the Yashica City 100 Might Be Worse Than We Thought
This week, Chris Niccolls published his review of Yashica’s latest digital camera, the City 100. PetaPixel had a lot of questions about the camera from the get-go and were less than impressed with its performance. Since we published that review, new information has come to light that makes the situation around Yashica’s point-and-shoot look somehow worse than initially thought.
We received a tip from a viewer in Hong Kong who, after watching Niccolls review on YouTube, noticed the camera looked extremely familiar to one that is listed on 1688.com. 1688.com is a China-based online marketplace designed to cater to business-to-business clients. The company works primarily with brands in China but once those deals are struck, brands are free to sell those products anywhere.
The listing on 1688 appears to be the same camera that Yashica is selling as the City 100 but without the Yashica branding. Not only does the design of the camera appear identical, but the specifications — including 5K video, the 13-megapixel sensor with interpolation up to 72 megapixels, the 2.8-inch rear LCD, the USB-C and microSD card support, and the dimensions of the camera — are one-for-one copies.
The listing on 1688.com prices the camera at 530 yuan, or about 565 HKD — which is about $72. That leaves plenty of margin for the company that operates the Yashica brand since it’s selling the City 100 for 1,780 HKD, which is about $230.
Considering that Yashica does appear to sometimes manufacture original products (even if they are exceptionally bad), it’s disappointing to see the company resort to what appears to be the selling an off-the-shelf compact digital camera and playing it off as their own. If true, it also goes a long way toward explaining why Yashica declined to send PetaPixel a review sample.
“I wouldn’t consider the Yashica a good long-term investment, and the cameras are expensive enough that it will hurt when they fall apart sooner than you would think,” Niccolls writes in his review, and his sentiments about build quality aren’t without personal experience: the sample he tested was purchased directly from Yashica and within a few minutes of use, the metal ring around the front of the lens dislodged.
It’s not a secret that the Yashica brand of 2025 is not the same as the brand that created some of the most beloved film cameras of the decades past. Still, if this is what it appears to be, it’s a let-down to see the Yashica name associated with this kind of low-effort product.
Image credits: Header image by Erin Thomson for PetaPixel
