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Toy Digital Cameras
Our dining room May 29, 2001: this page is *so* out of date - now you can buy a very nice digital camera for $50!

May 3, 2000:
I've been looking for a starter digital snapshot camera for a while, but the technology was improving so quickly that it just wasn't worth spending the bucks. Then I happened upon the Barbie Photo Designer Digital Camera in (of all places) a Staples office supply store. It's a great camera for the price - it lists for about 70 bucks - and is perfect for quick shots around the house. I took this picture of my dining room at night and uploaded it as-is to the web: I haven't edited it at all.

The Barbie Camera Here's the camera itself. It's clearly styled as a young girl's camera, so if you aren't a young girl be prepared to hear comments like "Is that your daughter's camera?" On the technical side, the camera holds 6 color photos of 160 x 120 pixels in size. The software that comes with the camera exports pictures as very tiny (about 4KBytes each) JPEG images, which are perfect for quick web page downloads.
You can find out more about the Barbie Camera at Mattel Media.
Since I've written this note, a couple similar cameras have appeared: the Nickelodian Nick Click camera and the WWF Slam Cam. I haven't tried these out.

The Jam Cam 2

In August of 1999 KB Gear released the Jam Cam 2. It cost about 80 bucks, but it had some impressive specifications:
  • stores 8 pictures at 640x480
  • stores 26 pictures at 320x240
  • stores a gigantic 48 pictures at 160x120
  • USB connector so you don't fiddle with serial cables.
  • TWAIN interface so you can use anybody's software to read pictures from the camera.
When I first tried it out, I found it had a few drawbacks as well:
  • Color balance problems: my pictures turn out seriously red in any strongly-contrasting scene.
  • Very jagged pictures at 640x480 - it seems to really be a 320x240 camera.
  • The TWAIN interface doesn't work with all programs.
  • The user interface of the camera is a little more complicated than the Barbie Camera.
  • The case looks like it's rugged and waterproof, but it isn't.
Image from Jam Cam 2 Here is a 320x240 image from the camera. You can see how red the picture turned out.

Now that I've had a little time to play with it, I find I'm using the camera a lot. If I stick to the 320x240 mode and shoot in daylight, non-contrasty scenes, the pictures turn out surprizingly well. Shooting only at 320x240, I can take the camera on a day-long event and upload the photos to the web when I return home.

You can find out more about the KB Gear JamC@m 2 at KB Gear.

My recommendation: I'd buy the Barbie Camera if you're looking for an easy-to-use toy camera for shooting pictures around the house. If, on the other hand, you want a more versatile (but more complicated) toy camera that you can take on day-trips, I'd buy the JamC@m 2.
Last Changed May 29, 2001

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