Goodmans G-Shot 2025 TFT

Goodmans G-Shot 2025 TFT Review

I picked this camera out of the Argos catalogue at the end of June after I decided that my old digital camera needed replacing. I was drawn to this one because it was within my £80 budget, had a TFT screen unlike my older digicam, was full of features and used compact flash cards to expand its memory (handy since I already had a 32Mb card for my old camera).

For £80 you get a fair bit of kit. Not only do you get the camera, but you get a case, a mini-tripod, USB and TV-out cables, headphones, CD-ROM, a quick start guide and batteries (a nice touch so you can start snapping straight away).

The quick start guide makes sure you know not to connect the camera to the PC until the driver software is installed, and also gives you step by step instruction through the installation of the software, the camera and explains what each button does and what it means. But that’s where it stops. If you want to find out anything more, you really need to look at the PDF version manual on the driver CD. I’ve never done much more than glance at the manual, so, I can’t speak for its pros or cons, other than the fact that it’s not the physical wad of paper I would have liked until you decide to print it out.

Once everything is set up you’re ready to start taking photos and transferring them to the PC. Or moving MP3’s from your PC to the camera, whichever takes you fancy. I decided to try out the MP3 player first and copied a small selection of music to the camera. I can’t say I was disappointed with the quality of playback, at times it did become a little tinny, but remember you’re playing music on what is designed predominantly as a camera.

And as a camera it does it’s job well. With a 2 megapixel resolution (the higher the number the better the quality of the pictures) and the ability to store between 15 and 61 photos depending upon the quality it should be more than suitable for most people. As far as picture quality goes, the three different levels affect how many photos it can take, with High quality limiting you to a mere 15 shots, whilst medium allows 31 and low allows 61. In my own experience, medium quality should suffice for most people, but if you have an expansion card for the camera, I would highly recommend using the high quality setting as the extra quality cannot be overrated, especially if you’re planning on using zoom for some photos (for the record, this camera has 4x digital zoom).

The camera also allows the recording of video clips, and with my 32Mb expansion card in place, I manage to get between 2 and 3 minutes of video. Without an expansion card, you’re looking at around 30-60 seconds, which is still ample for most intents and purposes. Also, all video is recorded with audio, courtesy of the onboard microphone.

Once you’re taken a photo or recorded a video, you can enter Playback Mode to look at the results and then keep or delete it as you see fit. You can also zoom in on them, alter the brightness and view up to nine photos at once, although I personally find myself just using the standard one at a time view, and leaving the alterations until I get home and open up my graphics package.

The simplest way to move files to and from the camera is via what it calls “Mass Storage Mode” whereby the camera operates as another drive on your computer. This allows you to use My Computer to access your photos and movies and copy them to a more permanent location on your computer.

The camera also provides is a TV out function, allowing you to hook up your camera to a TV via the supplied cabling and view your images and movies on screen, making it very handy for showing friends and family your prized photos without having everyone huddled around a PC.

On the whole it is an excellent camera for the price, especially when considering the wealth of features and extras you get with it. A quick word of warning however, this camera sucks the life out of batteries. I find myself carrying at least three spare sets. I would seriously recommend you purchase some rechargeable batteries for use with the camera, otherwise you could find yourself having spent more on batteries than you did on the camera.