small isn't beautiful (Digital Dream l'espion mini)

Member Name: manitoba

Product:	Digital Dream l'espion mini
Date:	29/06/06 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small and light

Disadvantages: bad picture quality, feels very cheap

I won this as a competition so I'm not too sure for how much it sells. I was quite happy initally but I quickly understood I shouldn't expect too much.

The camera is indeed really small and light, but does feel more like a cheap plastic toy than anything else.

You can fit 20 352*288 pictures ("high" resolution) or 80 176*144 pictures (normal resolution) in the memory. They're usually blurry near the border but quite focused in the middle. The colours are quite faithful for the pictures taken outside, but get quite bad inside (pinkish/blue hue). The camera has no flash but usually manages well without one as the sensor is really sensitive to the ambient light. I was quite impressed about that.

I noticed that if you leave the AAA battery in the camera for a while, it will drain it. I suspect it's because the camera needs some power to keep the pictures in memory.

The camera uses the TWAIN interface (usually used by scanners) to transfer pictures to the PC, meaning you can do it directly in your favourite Paint program. Unlike the other reviewer, I had no problem to have it work with Windows XP.

The camera is supposed to be usable as a webcam as well, but it seems limited to recording short videos (with no sound of course) to be sent by email, which isn't really useful. I tried to use it with Skype but to no avail.

In a nutshell it's funny for a while but you can't achieve much with it. Moreover it's been outdated by any modern camera that offers a much better quality amongst many other usuful features. I think I'll probably end up giving it to my five-year-old niece, she at least should have fun with it.

Summary: Only if you're after a toy

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