Digital Cameras

Reviews

This camera looks like it might be built to take a bit of abuse, but I discovered this is not the case. My daughter got it as a birthday gift (she is 8), and within an hour, I saw her drop it from about waist level (maybe 2 feet?) onto a wood floor. She gave an "Oh, no!", but I thought certainly this was not the type of drop that would break it. I've dropped regular compact digital cameras from worse, with no harm done. But it turns out that this drop did in fact break something inside, as evidenced by a rattling noise, which turned out to be the on/off switch (apparently the actual switch underneath the plastic on/off button, because there was no visible damage that we could see from the outside, but pushing the on/off button there was no resistance or the "click" feel that was there before the incident). I actually took apart the camera carefully to see what was going on, and found that all the switches are held on by their solder connections to the camera circuit board, nothing else. Think of it like a shelf on a wall, and every time you press the button, you are pushing down on the shelf, but the shelf is only held onto the wall by tiny solder connections. Just an intrinsically poor design for the mechanicals. I'm not surprised other buyers have had lots of failures of the buttons and other parts. Inside it is a very cheaply constructed product, wrapped in a "rugged" looking package.

Company promised me a pre-Christmas delivery, which did not occur. They subsequenlty prmised me a Jan 6 and Jan 20 delivery, which still has not occurred. In each case no one bothered to notify me that there was a delay.

I bought this as a Christmas present for my five year old niece and it was perfect. The built in memory holds a ton of lower res photos and the memory card format is extremely cheep to upgrade. My niece carried it all day long and ended up dropping it several times. Each time the sturdy build absorbed the shock without issue. My only issue with it as an adult camera for outdoor use is the small menu and interface, a very small issue!

Camera would not hold a charge, and also the memory card would not lock into place...kept falling out. Not a good experience. Please refund me my money. Thanks, Kay E Keyes

People today think you need a little silver box-like camera for decent pictures. This has gotten a few bad reviews about it not being a camera for the grownups but the perfect little camera for the kids. That's fine go ahead and by it for the kids. I just don't know why the adults wouldn't want it; Does it look to kiddie for them? I bought this because I used the camera on my phone and my phone broke back in October. I would be getting a new NICE phone in January, and my boyfriend gave me one of his old phones. works good as a phone but not as a camera and with the holidays coming up (and me with a 6 month old baby) I NEEDED SOMETHING to stand up to taking lots of photos (such as a digital camera. About 2 weeks after getting this (I had it in my purse) the screen cracked... I guess rattleing around in my purse was just to much for it. But that kind of situation makes me think maybe it wouldn't be such a great little camera for the kids. As far as now, the screen may be cracked (since its a LCD screen the "crack" is like a digital glitch in view ONLY)But it still takes pictures just fine and the quality of the pictures is still decent.

Reviews

This camera looks like it might be built to take a bit of abuse, but I discovered this is not the case. My daughter got it as a birthday gift (she is 8), and within an hour, I saw her drop it from about waist level (maybe 2 feet?) onto a wood floor. She gave an "Oh, no!", but I thought certainly this was not the type of drop that would break it. I've dropped regular compact digital cameras from worse, with no harm done. But it turns out that this drop did in fact break something inside, as evidenced by a rattling noise, which turned out to be the on/off switch (apparently the actual switch underneath the plastic on/off button, because there was no visible damage that we could see from the outside, but pushing the on/off button there was no resistance or the "click" feel that was there before the incident). I actually took apart the camera carefully to see what was going on, and found that all the switches are held on by their solder connections to the camera circuit board, nothing else. Think of it like a shelf on a wall, and every time you press the button, you are pushing down on the shelf, but the shelf is only held onto the wall by tiny solder connections. Just an intrinsically poor design for the mechanicals. I'm not surprised other buyers have had lots of failures of the buttons and other parts. Inside it is a very cheaply constructed product, wrapped in a "rugged" looking package.

we bought this camera for our six-year old daughter, who has shown interest in photography. she rather quickly lost interest in it because it is necessary to hold the camera VERY still when taking photographs. also, the images are not that great. we have a 7+ year old digital camera that she has gone back to, which is much easier to use and gives better results.

I haven't used the Bean -- I somehow thought it was much smaller and might be convenient in situations where I don't have much room. But it's bigger than my 10mpg waterproof Olympus, so I won't be using it. Guess I'll have to find a kid to give it to -- it's too late for me to send it back, I think.

A video camera you can hide in the palm of your hand. Recharge via USB, has internal memory and SD card. Great still shots in any light (except infrared). Same features found in cameras costing $200 and up.

Reviews

The quality is so poor, you cannot see any details. Don't worry about whether somebody blinked - you cannot even see if they have eyes or a mouth; it's just a blur. My 8 year old doesn't even want to play with it as a toy, and I'd bought it for him.

It was a gift for my 5 year old daughter, and that is about all it is good for. Pictures sometimes turn out pretty good, but you can't tell by the viewer. She has had it now over a year, and it still works.

My daughter opened this product on Christmas morning and it refused to work right out of the box. My husband tried different batteries and messed with it for hours and could never get it to work.

This camera if perfect for my 9yr olds first digital camera. He has really enjoyed taking pictures and video. One side note, make sure to order a memory card to go with it. Great little camera for a kid.

I bought this camera for a gift, it looks nice but when I got it is very light and plastic more along the cheep toy feel. The camera takes descant pictures so I'm not too upset but If I had looked at it in the store I would not have purchased it.

Reviews

I was out buying a digital camera (got a real nice one too!) and as I was checking out this little sucker caught my eye. $10 at best buy. AND it's water resistant! So yeah, I figured I was already spending a couple hundred, what's 10 more? And for such a cheap digi, it actually exceeded my expectations! I figured it would be black and white gigi-pet looking pictures. More like the original camera phones. So yes, it's a little blurry and kinda grainy. But you can toss it across rooms (it's been caught everytime), water resistant (so playing in the rain when it's bright out), and if it breaks or I lose it I'm not really concerned. The software it comes with is like a glorified PAINT program. Yes, that's the paint that comes with every windows program ever and hasn't changed since windows 3.1. But you can smear, put borders, put your face on Abe Lincoln's body, fun little chitzy stuff. You can also take pictures while it's hooked up to the computer (in the little PHOTO IMPRESSION 4 that it uses) and see yourself on the screen. Reminiscent of the original web cams, minus the recording aspect. It's easy enough to save pictures to the comp, open it with another program, and save it in a different format. *EDIT- you save it as whatever file it tells you to and THEN resave it as whatever format you want. I actually had saved it, closed the program by accident, reopened it with PHOTO IMPRESSION again and saved it as jpg and it was fine) -END EDIT* So for the money I paid, not bad. It's not great, but what do you expect? So officially: Pros: -ease of use -easy setup -goofy college kid resistant (didn't say PROOF) -works -holds 26 pics -can see yourself on the computer for photos -glorified paint program (nowhere near as good as photoshop, but better than paint!) -generally (3 out of 5) identifiable pictures -rubber grip/water resistant -EXTREMELY CHEAP! Cons: -blurry -grainy -small -no flash -itty bitty -needs VERY steady hand -EXTREMELY CHEAP! It gets a 4 star for what it is, not what it isn't. It's not fuji, nikon, canon, etc and doesn't pretend to be.

I bought this camera for my son for christmas. While I expected low picture quality, this camera is still a disappointment. Pictures are worse than the freebie camera phones I've had. Linux support is totally not available. According to comments in gphoto source code it probably never will be supported due to its proprietary compression technique. This means my son cannot use his new camera on his computer, nor can I use it on mine. We have to fire up the old XP machine to retrieve the photos. The software used to get the photos off is cheap and shoddy. The window opens right in the center of the screen, renders on top of all other running programs, and is not movable. Pictures are saved in .png format (good for graphics, not good for photos). Flush your [...] bucks down the toilet instead of buying this camera.

Reviews

Ridiculous in this day and age that a company would put out a digital camera that isn't Mac compatible. I've used a lot of cameras and this is a first for me. With 99% of the cameras out there, you just connect it directly by USB and the camera does the rest - none of these proprietary software or "driver" installations like you have on a PC. Not this thing. Too bad, too - it otherwise seems to be a cute, durable little camera. I figured going in that the quality wouldn't be great, but good enough for my purposes. Since I can't upload any of the photos, guess we'll never know. I understand there is a similar, larger version of this camera that IS Mac compatible. But I won't be buying it - I won't support a company that doesn't support a quality OS.

I purchased two of these units for my two kids. I liked the fact that the unit had a rechargeable battery. The battery is recharged via a USB cord you just insert into your drive. The battery does not last all that long and if you do not download your photos before the battery discharges you loose the image. Also the LCD on the back is a not to view at all. It is just a small little dot that just shows the user the number of photos remaining and additional mode setting codes. The photos are a blur as well. I would recommended if you are checking these out to save your money and buy a different model that actually has a LCD screen on the back. I have found that is what the kids really like, to take their shots and review them.

I didn't realize the camera was so small... it's around the size of a credit card. I knew it had no screen to view the pics, but it's too simplistic and tiny. Not worth the money. I was looking for something for my 7 year old but I think I'll just pay more for a real camera that's cheap and easy to use.