Little Tikes: My Real Digital Camera - Primary Colors

After my daughter borrowed and destroyed at least one of our digital cameras, I figured she must have enough interest that she ought to have one she can beat up on her own with no consequences for either party!She's 3 now and has had the camera for about 6 months. She drops it, swings it around, tosses it in the toybox when she's done, takes hundreds of pictures! Its easy for her to use, big buttons, nothing complicated. Needless to say, it is not a fast or powerful camera, but its perfect for a kid.The USB connection requires no special setup or software and is covered by a small door. If you have big fingers you may find it difficult to push back the spring loaded door and insert the USB plug at the same time (bear paws). Battery replacement is a little tricky, but a decent screwdriver and some patience go a long way.

You get a VGA resolution camera (640x480) with 64M on board memory to store the images and a robust body which looks like it can take quite a bit of abuse from young children. The base for the quality is about what you would expect from a camera phone circa 2001/2 e.g. Nokia 7250. But the resolution is ok for little kids pictures and I didn't have high expectations of quality photography, just the capacity that our young children could take photos and have a look at them on the computer, print them, make collages etc was appealing. My son had a ball taking pictures with it (he also had fun taking pictures with a plastic toy pretend camera). However the following really serious flaws with the device were apparent:1. The small lcd screen on the camera is of very low quality with the image slow to update.2. The output of the photographs was terrible - any photos taken with the flash in indoor lit areas were grossly overexposed such that the image was indistinct.3. The use of the camera required the button to be pushed (which is on the front) the camera to be held on the image for several seconds for the photograph to be taken - a tall order for a 4 year old.The only photograph options were either blurry pictures from the apparent multiple second exposure time or white pictures with indistinct outlines if the flash operates.I am really very disappointed with this product. Having looked at forums subsequent to purchasing it (not smart in this day and age! |-( ), it seems the overexposure and slow shutter speed problem is inherent to the device rather than a one-off fault. I guess the camera ends up being as good as the previous plastic toy pretend camera which my son previously used.

Nice looking and durable kid friendly camera. The photo display area is too small for a young child to look through. The photo number is too large for the size of the display, it covers up the picture. What little bit of the picture you can see is very blurry and distorted. It was easy for my grandson to use but he tired of it quickly because he could not see the pictures he had taken. The excitement of having just taken a picture was gone when you have basically nothing to show.

My biggest frustration with the kids' cameras I've seen is that none seem to have full technical specs. So its hard to compare them. This camera has 64MB of memory and the pictures it produces are 640x480. There aren't slots to plug in additional memory cards. It comes with a standard USB cable and it reports itself as a standard USB storage device. There are no software drivers.After a few minutes of instruction, my daughter mastered the controls and is now successfully taking hundreds of pictures at a time. She does produce a few dud pictures with the camera. Some of that comes from the 4 year old operator. But the camera shutter speed also seems a little slow for the lighting - making it easy to get blur. On the other hand, this often leads to some cool unintentional effects. And to be honest, when she's taking 100s of pictures, it's not so bad to be able to throw out a few here and there.Overall though, this is a toy. And the pictures are mostly incidental. The biggest things for me are that she can operate the controls by herself and that she enjoys playing with it. Those needs were met.The primary negatives are the ones others have mentioned - the large numbers on the pictures and the stubborn battery cover. The problem with the battery cover is not really that bad. I've had it off 3 or 4 times already since we've been cannibalizing old batteries from various remote controls and such throughout the house. The issue is that the screws are at a weird angle that makes them hard to get started. Having dealt with a lot of electronics - I probably wouldn't have known to complain if I hadn't read other reviews.The other consideration for us was that this camera was about half the price of the comparable Fisher Price and VTech models. Since we were looking to buy a toy and not a professional camera, I think this camera was a pretty good value.

I got this camera for my two-year-old grandson. He is having a great time with it, although he cannot really take any pictures. The shutter button is on the front which makes it hard for a toddler to look at the subject and reach to the front to take the picture. Maybe, as he gets a little older it will be easier for him. His mom said he accidentally dropped it down a flight of stairs and it keeps working. I would buy it again and would suggest it for other little ones. Although not a great quality of picture, the kids don't care!