You can't beat digital cameras for convenience of taking all those pics you just had to have and this camera is the pinnacle of convenient fun photography.
It is literally the size of a credit card and about 6mm thick; fitting easily in my wallet I carry it everywhere with me. It also comes with an arm/neck strap and it is small enough that you could wear it under a baggy t-shirt with ease. It’s made of navy blue plastic with aluminum casing; the buttons [two on the back. one for picture size (or delete if held), one to toggle sound] are in the blue. The back also has the viewfinder and LCD screen showing you the battery charge, number of pictures remaining, current resolution and if the sound is on. One side of the camera has a switch which turns the camera on; this means that the lens comes out from the camera about 5mm making it about a 1cm thick in places. You simply press this in to turn the camera off.
It is defiantly one for fun photography, not high quality images. My primary use is taking pics of my little boy playing around the house and pics of my siblings and friends messing about in the garden and is great for both these uses. Daytime outdoors and well lit indoor pose no problem for the camera, however darkness and dimness can end up as a black blur. It comes with 'AutoBrite' technology which does help a little however I would not recommend it for night time or dark places, such as a club or pub. And as with most cameras never take a picture with the sun in shot as it tends to take over the picture. The quality is acceptable to good depending on the conditions.
It has 8mb of memory and takes 26 pictures at a resolution of 640x480 or 101 at 320x240, I take mine at the lower resolution as there is no function on the camera to review and erase previous photos, you can erase the previous picture or all of them but as there is no view screen you cannot tell what the photo looked like. Also the memory is non-upgradeable or changeable so I do not think it would be suitable for a family holiday or week away, probably a day worth of photos in it (because believe me once you have a digital camera this handy you will take pictures of EVERYTHING. Ooh that’s an interesting leaf and such)
The camera comes with the necessary drivers and a photo album and editing suite. Downloading photos is easy connect the camera to the computer using the mini USB cable (supplied), load up the photo album click download and your done. You can chose to leave the pics on the camera or delete them as you download, the album creates separate folders for each downloading session and the folders are titled by their date. The camera has an integrated battery which charges when connected to the computer via the USB cable. The manual says it can take 1000 pics before it needs charging, however I have never found the need as by the time I’ve finished downloading and editing my photos its already recharged :-)
The camera itself is pretty durable, my two year old is often getting hold of it and beating it around but it doesn’t seam to have suffered any damage, which is due to the aluminum casing I think.
My major problem with the camera is that the picture tends to be ruined if you move the slightest bit when you are taking the picture. (Maybe this isn’t a problem for most people but I have really unsteady hands :-)).
I’ve seen this camera in the Argos catalogue for £50 and I wouldn’t pay that much money for what is essential a snazzy looking basic digicam that you could probably get for around £20. However I picked mine up for £15 off eBay (new and boxed) and at that price its well worth a look.
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Jun 1st, 2004
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