Kodak Pixpro SL25 ($300):
The Pixpro SL25 from Kodak is essentially a camera lens that mounts onto your phone, allowing for higher resolution than what your phone's camera can capture. The Pixpro communicates with your phone over Wi-Fi and lets you compose the image on the phone's screen. Once the photos are snapped using the shutter button on the Pixpro, the phone serves primarily to review and share the images to social media services.
The downside is you have a second device to carry around, which defeats the purpose of taking selfies on the fly.
The upside is image quality. The Pixpro shoots sharp 16 megapixel photos and full high-definition video at 1080p. This quality is common for rear cameras, but not the front ones for selfies. As a bonus, the Pixpro offers a zoom of up to 25 times, which is more helpful for regular shots than selfies. It's a real, optical zoom, not a software magnification phones typically use.
The Pixpro has fold-out arms to attach to my phone, such that the two devices act as one. That, in itself, isn't different from using just the phone for selfies. But I was able to hold the Pixpro and press the shutter in ways I could not with my phone. For instance, I was able to have my finger rest on a physical button on the Pixpro instead of searching on the phone's touch screen for a virtual one.
I had a lot of success using the Pixpro unattached to my phone as well. It has a wide-angle lens that fits plenty of action into the frame.
Some phones are coming with better front cameras. The one on HTC's new Desire Eye is 13 megapixels, the same as the rear camera. There's even a front flash. You'll still get sharper images with the Kodak attachment.
