Cheap and Simple...and It Shows (Kodak EZ 200)

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Kodak EZ 200
Date:	31/03/01 (210 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, fast downloads, simple to use

Disadvantages: picture quality poor, no flash, does a lot, just not very well

The EZ200 from Kodak is one of the many low-budget digital cameras which are appearing on the market at the moment. Weighing in at a delightful £90(approximately) there really is little to argue about pricewise but what exactly is it that you get for your money?...

Well, the EZ200 allows you to take still photographs, record movies and has the ability to behave just like a webcam. Sounds good? Well movies are a maximum of 10 seconds long, which is not exactly brilliant but we are talking of a very cheap camera here. Picture quality is not exactly impressive either with a complete lack of a built in flash meaning that pictures can only be taken in well lit areas and then the results are not perfect. Furthermore, if you are thinking of taking a picture of a moving object then forget it - this little critter only lets you take still photos with any real quality. The top picture resolution here is a measly 640x480 which illustrates my point and with a memory capacity of only 4Mb(which can not be upgraded) there is a limited maximum of 120 photos which can be stored at the lowest reolution of 320x240.

The actual downloading of the pictures from the camera to the PC is fast, as the pictures themselves are very small, but there is a further problem in that you can not download single pictures but the whole lot at once has to be downloaded(or at least my understanding of the software means I have to do this...lol). This is an annoying software feature but as it is so fast is forgiveable.

In reality, this camera is more like a portable webcam, which has some additional digital camera/movie camera features. Combining all three and at such a low price obviously means skimping on the quality of all three so perhaps unless you are on a really low budget and need something like this, opt for specialised products in the areas instead.

Overall, this is not a bad piece of equipment. It does all the things it is meant to do and is very easy to
use. However, the quality of the results is not brilliant and therefore this is really for people on a very low budget who need a webcam, digital camera and the ability to record short movies. Otherwise opt for something else.

Summary: