Little Camera... Big Disapointment

Author's Rating:

Pros: Extremely Small, quick, super easy to use

Cons: Poor Picture Quality, claims 640x480 or 1.3 megapixel, 1.3 megapixel is fake. Has no flash

The Bottom Line: 
If you just want a toy then this is great... if you want to actually take some pictures, stay away.

Author's Review
This (what could have been) a cool little camera has definitely been a MAJOR
disappointment for me. Ever since, I read the review on this camera over 2 months
ago on geek.com I have been waiting for it to come out in the retail stores so I could
pick it up.

Even though it is extremely easy to use, has well written drivers (which is a rarity
anymore), awesome small design that fits anywhere (really is the size of a credit card
and extremely thin), has great battery life, and a very good price... the basic
requirement of a camera... "the photo quality" well the best word I can think of here
is that it "SUCKS!"...

Logitech claims that it will do 640x480 or 1.3 megapixel (which equates to
1280x960 mathematically) they seriously are exaggerating about the 1.3 megapixel...
this camera will either return 640x480 true photos (which are not horribly bad just a
bit blurry and often dark) or it will interpolate (guess) them to to 1280x960 by
converting each 1 pixel to a 4 pixel box (with some intelligence), which makes the
picture horrible, grainy, very pixelated and makes it look like a painting. Another
issue I have is that this camera has no flash and requires a ton of light to be on your
subject when shooting, this is understandable because of the size and can easily
overlooked, but is a pain for indoor shots. Also there are not accessory for sale for
this camera, I contacted Logitech asking if they sold the proprietary USB cable
separately that comes with the camera (I wanted to keep one at work and one at
home so I could sync anywhere) and they do not, the do not sell anything for it.

On the base technology used in this camera... this camera does not use a true
CCD like most other cameras it uses an inferior CMOS sensor which even though
has been re-worked on by SMaL Tech still is inferior to a CCD sensor in image
quality.

On the positive side the cameras battery seems to last forever between charges...
there is not power cord just a USB cable which not only transfers the photos to the
computer but also charges the camera (as long as the PC is on), the size of the
camera is great. And as I mentioned the drivers for the camera are great (they
actually work) and the ease of use is at about a kindergartner's level... you open the
camera wait 2 seconds... point, push the button, close the camera... plug it into the
computer which brings up a "move" dialog and click OK... that it.

The camera also comes with a mini CD that contains a limited edition of MGI's
PhotoSuite... but if you purchase this then I would suggest using the following
configuration (it is what seems to work best for me)... First off: Only take you photos
using the 640x480 then install JASC Paint Shop Pro on your system... use the
Logitech drivers to move the photos off to a specified directory (Folder for you
windows only users :) ) and open the photos using Paint Shop Pro to do any
modifications (including resizing, do not rely on the camera to do this (in other words
stay away from the 1.3 megapixel option) or the photos will be awful)