Blink and you'll miss it! (Sipix Stylecam Blink)

Member Name: KnightOwl

Product:	Sipix Stylecam Blink
Date:	11/06/02 (873 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cute & cool, Very small, Holds lots of photos

Disadvantages: The software, Fiddly to use, Grainy pictures

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a bad camera at all. I've had mine about three weeks, and I love it, but anyone who buys one should think carefully first and be sure they understand the limitations and what it is they're actually buying. Make sure you're clear in your mind about what you want to use this camera for.

It's cute and undeniably cool, it's very cheap, and it holds quite a lot of pictures, especially at the lower resolution. Plus it's incredibly easy to carry around with you at all times, so you're always ready for an unexpected picture-taking moment. But.....

Resolution
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The maximum is 640x480 which is very low compared with the 3-4 mega-pixel market that is out there now. The lower resolution of 320x240 is hardly worth using, unless you really want to take 300 very grainy pictures rather than 100 grainy ones.

No Flash
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Combined with the low res, the lack of a flash facilty really reduces the quality of pictures you can take. On a bright day with plenty of colour, the pictures are pretty reasonable, however indoors is another matter. It really doesn't cope well with indoor lighting - the pictures are grainy and the contrast isn't great.

Usability
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I wouldn't have thought I would ever say this, but I now actually believe a camera can be too small. The buttons are tiny and really fiddly to use, I managed reasonably ok, but my partner (no fingernails!) really struggled. Also, daft as it may sound, the fact that the camera is completely square doesn't help much either. It takes an extra few seconds to make sure you've got the thing the right way up, and by then your photo-opportunity may have gone. Also, being so small and light, it's actually quite hard to keep it still when you're snapping - the pressure you need to put on to push the shutter button can be enough to make it fe
el quite unstable in your hands.

Memory
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The memory is totally reliant on the battery power, so make sure you've copied all pictures off it if you notice the power dropping. If the battery goes, you lose any pictures still on the camera.

Software
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You do get quite a lot of software with this camera, but personally I've found it really difficult to use. I actually entered the digital camera market fairly early, and I still make a lot of use of my first purchase, a Kodak DC280. It's fairly big and bulky compared with the newer ones in the marketplace, but its incredibly easy to use and the picture quality is superb at 2.0m mega-pixels. (Oops, I don't mean to write an op on that one here!). To view the pictures on a PC, you either plug the camera into a USB port, or (better as you don't use the camera batteries), remove the flash card and stick it into a USB Flash Card Reader. Either way, the flash card immediately appears as another drive on your PC, and you can move, copy or delete the photos as you would with any other files, and they can be viewed with any software that can read jpegs - just use whatever you're most familiar with. Not so with the little Blink, unfortunately. So far I've only been able to read the picture files with the software package they provide, and since you don't see the camera as simply another drive, it's much more fiddly to get the photos off the camera and onto your hard drive. Once they are there, of course, it's fine and you can view/edit them with Adobe Photoshop, ACDSee or whatever takes your fancy. It's just a bit more complicated than I feel it needs to be, especially when you'e in a hurry to see your photos!

Summary
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I don't mean to sound too negative with all this - like I said, I love my little camera, I'm just aware of its limitations. As long as you just want a fabulously cool little ca
mera to stick in your pocket or handbag, so you'll always be ready to capture a moment that would have slipped by otherwise, then it's great. Fantastic, in fact. Just don't expect it to replace your "real" camera for those important holiday/wedding snaps, and don't expect the picture quality to be out of this world. There are a couple of good, well-written ops on this camera already which give a pretty positive view of it, on the whole. I don't disagree with what those ops are saying at all - I just want people to be aware that there is perhaps more of a downside than they might realise....

Summary: