A gadget (Digital Dream l'espion mini)

Member Name: Donf18

Product:	Digital Dream l'espion mini
Date:	28/04/09 (166 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small and compact

Disadvantages: battery life

This Precision Mini camera is a neat little gadget but that is really all it is these days. It comes under the guise of quite a few manufacturers, well at least four that I have seen, there are some very small variations but the basic camera is the same.

Measuring a mere 2.5 * 1.5 * .5 inches it fits easily into your shirt pocket. It can be purchased for various prices from £9.99 to £19.99 depending on where you shop.

In High resolution mode it takes 20 pictures, whilst in Low resolution it takes 80 pictures. In Hi Res the pictures can best be described as adequate, the quality is ok but the seeing eye can pick up the minor flaws. My personal opinion is that the Lo Res mode is a waste of time the quality is just to poor.

I can take about 20 -30 secs of video, but there is no sound. The quality here is about the same as Hi Res mode so it's acceptable..................just.

This is a USB device and as such is simple to install and operate. There are only 2 buttons on the camera one is for the actual picture taking and doubles up as a select button. The other button is simply used to scroll through the different options on the very small LCD display. These options are only displays as two letters i.e. CL = clear HR is High res etc.

There is a small viewfinder secreted on the top of the camera and this can be brought up by the flick of a small switch on the side of the unit, whilst the software supplied with the camera is basic but essential since it enables the easy dispersal of the photos from the camera to the PC. A very basic arts package is supplied but it is VERY BASIC. The unit functions on 1 AAA battery, but should the battery fail you will lose all pictures in the camera. It is therefore advisable to download pictures as soon as possible since the battery is used constantly to store photos already taken.

All in all as a digital camera it is no more than a gimmick, but using the USB cable supplied it can also be used as a webcam and in this capacity it does more than suffice. There is no stand with the camera so you will have to find some means to keep it in place. A small double-sided sticky tab of the kind found 100 for a £1 in the pound shop will do nicely.

Using the unit as a webcam is simple, all that is required is that you plug it into a spare USB port on your PC. In the Software you are planning to use the webcam in go to the options to select camera and then select Dual DSC (2770) this is the name of the camera under windows. You can use this camera in Netmeeting or yahoo and the quality is as good if not better than some other webcams I have seen.

In conclusion as a camera this is a NO NO it's just a gimmicky gadget that's neat to play with. As a webcam it is very good and useful and easily set-up and removed. The star rating is for the Webcam functions NOT for the camera as a camera.

Summary: A neat camera but nothing more than a gadget these days

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