richardgoodwin.com

So, being one in need of a thin, moderately rugged, and [most important] cheap digital camera, I ventured out this week to pick up the FlatFoto 3MP digicam from Radio Shack. I had read some reviews of previous models that suggested it was less than the cat’s meow, but–forever hopeful–I assumed that the newest version must have improved to some degree. After all, for only $59.99 after rebate, it surely can’t be that bad!

What’s in the Box?

The packaging is relatively spartan, basically a blister pack with the following inside:

• Camera (natch!)
• USB cable (normal to mini-USB)
• Dock for camera (cable can connect to this or camera)
• Lanyard
• CD containing drivers and ARCsoft software

Initial Impressions

Well, I wanted to love it. I needed to love it. However, having used it, I don’t so much love it. Okay, I pretty much don’t love it at all.

First, let the pictures speak for me: Flatfoto Gallery

And those are the better ones! Pretty much every photo I took was either blurry, too dark, overexposed, or grainy as hell. Some of the outdoor shots weren’t too bad, but certainly not what I would consider acceptable.

It seems like you need to meet some pretty stringent criteria to get a decent photo:

• LOTS of light
• Absolutely no motion
• Be a decent distance from the objects you are shooting
• Something else magical I obviously never discovered

So, for those looking for a bottom line type of answer: it’s going back. That said, there were some interesting things to note about this camera in general.

- Standard mini-USB: this is an improvement over the proprietary cables used in the past. It also comes with the neat dock which can be useful for many people.

- Picture transfer: I didn’t need any drivers to get things moving on XP SP2. You just insert the USB cable, and then you can either browse to the cam and use the GetPix32.exe program to transfer images (they are stored in a proprietary .raw format on the camera), or accept the Windows popup dialog that pretty much does the same thing.

- It’s small (though not as small as the previous gens), and very light. The menus are very bare, with just the minimum settings for Flash, Picture size, etc. Very easy to use for neophytes!

- Camera automatically charges in the dock: This is plus and a minus…It’s neat that you don’t have to plug it into the wall, but if you travel w/o a PC you’re not going to be able to charge the [internal, non-replaceable] battery.

- SD support: It has an SD slot, which is great as SD costs about as much as diet sodas these days.

So, if anyone has recommendations on another cam in this price range (or thereabouts) that is .5″ thick or less, and actually takes a good photo, please let me know!