Customer Reviews

Gateway DC-T50 5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I ordered this camera from Gateway, directly, at a relatively modest price for a 5.25MP digital camera. The camera was fabulous outdoors but faces and backgrounds had a green cast when using the flash. I tried various flash settings and finally decided that my camera had a flaw. I emailed Gateway and received an immediate response asking me to call an agent. After a brief explanation of my problem I was told that a new camera would be sent immediately. The new camera takes perfect pictures! The detail is incredible and the color is accurate.

There are some exceptional features on this little camera such as a sturdy and attractive metal casing, easy to use controls, a multitude of settings which allow you to choose aperture or shutter speed preferences, portrait mode which blurs the background and includes a red eye reduction flash feature, a choice of focal distances including a macro lens feature, movie clips with sound, 3x optical zoom (I reccommend using only optical zoom with a digital camera)and many more. The battery is rechargeable directly in the camera and it stays charged for a long time. There is also a battery life meter as well as an indicator of space available on the sd card.

There are some problems as well. The red eye reduction though helpful is not perfect. This is a problem that exists with all small digital cameras and can be fixed on your computer. The time between pressing the shutter release button and getting an image is long especially with a 512MB card. This may account for the blurred pictures that some people have commented about. You MUST hold still until the picture appears on your monitor or your motion will blur the image. (Try keeping your elbows in at your side for more stability.) Another reason for blurred images might be choosing the wrong focus. If you are set in macro mode and snapping a distant object it will appear blurred and vice versa for close objects and long distance settings. The flash is not extremely powerful but works as well as any other small digital I've used, and I've used many. This is not a strong suit of compact digital cameras.

Overall this is a great value for the price and the photos you get will be as good as or better than any point and shoot film camera you now own. The advantage will be that you can view them immediately, email to friends, and print photos yourself using a photo printer and your computer. No more waiting for the photomat to do its job. Be aware that you should bring along an extra card and an extra battery if you want to be assured of uninterrupted use of any digital camera. Since these items are reuseable indefinitely they are worth the investment.

I picked this camera because it's small, has 5mp, 3x optical zoom and everything else for such a low price. BAD MISTAKE. All pictures taken outside turned out great...but inside pictures were a different story. If I used the flash, then anything in the picture would be washed out and faces were left almost completely white. If I didn't use the flash, then the camera had to be sitting on a table for the picture to not turn out horribly blurry. When trying all the settings, looking for one that would work well for inside, I took 67 pictures of our Christmas tree. Literally 4 of them turned out acceptable.

It turns out bad indoor pictures were the least of my problems. After 20 days of use, the camera refused to turn on seconds after a picture had been taken. I tried a new battery and then plugged it in with the adapter, but it had no response. I didn't hit it against anything or drop it in the 45 seconds between the time of the last picture and it not turning on...so who knows what happened. Unfortunately, gateway only offered a 15 day money back guarantee...so since I was five days past the guarantee date, my father had to call and hassle them into refunding our money. As far as a long-term warranty, this camera is only warranted for 1 year. Kind of scary when it is a $350 investment.

With all the bad things that happened, it is possible I just got a lemon...but for $350 I recommend spending your money on a camera from a company known for CAMERAS, not computers.

This is my first digital camera, though I have borrowed a Kodak digital camera before, and when purchasing for myself chose the Gateway over the latest Kodak model primarily because it offered the same features, but is much more compact--a little larger than a deck of cards--a key feature when trying to fit it in a small purse that's already overflowing.

The camera comes with a 32MB card, which means when you have it set to the full 5-megapixels you can take about 12 pictures. But unless you're planning to enlarge photos a great deal or want to zoom in on things in detail after taking the photo, 3-megapixels is sufficient, and for that the card holds about 36 photos. Of course, the whole point of a digital camera is be able to take as many pictures as you like without the worry of wasting film, so I bought a 256 MB card: 200 photos at 3mp ought to keep me happy.

The lay-out is pretty standard: Zoom lens that closes up behind a shutter when the camera is off, digital display window on the back to see what you're taking and what you've taken, a four-direction set of buttons to navigate the menus (good thing I practiced those controls playing Sega and Nintendo growing up) little wheel around the picture-taking button on the top right to select the mode, a zoom button and a separate power button. I found that when using the viewer to line up the shot the image was often very grainy and difficult to see, particularly in extreme lighting, but once you take the photo, the display quality is much better. Like with most cameras, the photo you've just taken is shown in the display for a few seconds, and you can turn the dial and look back at all the photos you've taken. You can also delete that one that makes you look like you have an extra chin right away, before anyone else sees it. All this viewing used to drain the battery of early digital camera models, but I've yet to run out of battery life, so no complaints on that, and the battery is rechargable.

The dial on the top has separate modes for regular, night, action and portrait (which blurs the background) shots. The display window shows battery life, flash/no flash, number of pictures you can still take, zoom level, picture quality setting and auto focus on/off. You can also take a brief movie (we're talking a few minutes max, depending the size of your memory card, but still a nice feature).

I actually received this camera the day of a friend's wedding, so it got a test immediately. Having charged it over night, I couldn't wait to start snapping. Overall I got some nice shots once I got the hang of it. My only complaints are that it often took too long to auto focus. So, the bride is coming down the aisle, I line up the perfect shot, push the button, whirr, focus adjust and click--another lovely shot of the back of someone's head. There's also an auto off feature, which is great to save battery power, but when you want your camera at the ready for longer than a minute, it's annoying to have to keep turning it back on.

My second test-run was a day at the Bronx Zoo. Now I had the hang of it, and I got some really impressive shots. I could zoom right in for a close-up of a gorilla's hand when it was sitting on the other side of the Plexiglas window so you could see every detail of her fingernails. Or get a nice shot of those flamingos on the little island far away, or right up-close and personal with a Siberian tiger's face.

Accessories include PhotoSuite software to view and alter your photos on your computer, a USB cable to connect the camera to the computer, an AV cable to recharge the battery, LI Li-ion rechargeable battery and a 32MP card (as mentioned).

This is a very good price for a 5-megapixel camera, and as one of the first that Gateway has produced, I think they've got a very competitive product. I'm certainly satisfied.

I was looking for a camera with 4 or 5 megapixels and decided to give this one a try as I have always been satisfied with Gateway products. This camera did not disapoint. It has worked as advertised and all the systems have worked well and continue to do so. I had been worried about lens quality when I bought the camera, but this turned out to be of excellent quality. The pictures are sharp and clear. The camera is easy to use and the instructions that come with it are quite adequate. Indoors or outdoors the photo quality is top notch. The flash works well and can be adjusted to three modes. The portrait and macro features are teriffic and it can be set on a manual mode if desired. The camera is light weight and the lithium battery is very convenient and long lasting on a charge. I recommend this product highly in every way.

Like others state, this camera works when it wants to. I get card errors ALL THE TIME. Says "no card" sometimes..Even right after I just took a few pictures. I have 3 flash cards...camera does same thing with all 3. I HAVE LOST MANY GREAT PICTURE OPS BECAUSE OF THIS CRAPY CAMERA. GATEWAY WILL DO NOTHING ABOUT THIS AND REFUSE TO ISSUE A REFUND.I think I have seen just about every "ERROR" message there is on this camera.
With that said, when this camera "does" work, it takes some nice pictures. But, for the price of $359 paid, it should at least work right!
My advise...DO NOT PURCHASE THIS CAMERA!! SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!
GATEWAYS CUSTOMER SUPPORT IS THE WORST I HAVE EVEN SEEN..IT TOOK ME OVER A MONTH TO BE BE TOLD THAT THEY KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEM BUT DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FIX IT AND A REFUND IS NOT AN OPTION SICE IT WAS OVER 30 DAYS..CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS "HUNG UP" ON ME MORE TIMES THEN I CARE TO SAY..MY CREDIT CARD COMPANY HAS BEEN NOTIFIED AND "HOPEFULLY" I WILL RECEIVE A REFUND SOME TIME!!
ONCE AGAIN...DO NOT PURCHASE THIS CAMERA...YOU WILL NOT BE HAPPY!!!

I've written two review and each time it's been erased by the dreaded back button, but that's just how persistant i am on proving this is a good camera.

This camera comes with all the standard bells and whistles (they're listed above) but it even comes with 5MP! Thats sounds like a good deal to me. I don't know what was wrong with Amazon's cameras but i got mine from BestBuy (and with a much better deal at that) and the colors were perfect. Just make sure you have it on the right settings (night for night; contrast how you like it; sepia and monochrome when you want it; quality: fine is the best one)

That paragraph includes the pro's; now for the con's.

CONS:
You need a memory card, but no matter the camera that's always the case. The one it comes with is always to small (even though the 32mb card it brings isnt that bad)

Look around for a better price. At BestBuy they we bought it at $150. It's sold out at BestBuy (with good reason) but it's still available for pick-up in some locations

We've only had the camera for 3 weeks and now can only take pictures when the camera decides to work. "Protected Card" error started on daughter's bday so we missed shots.

I'm very disappointed with the support and the camera. We bought an extra memory card and ended up paying $450. It's worthless! I expected more of Gateway.

I loved the T50 for about 2 months. My experience has been that it takes great pictures, indoor and out. But then I started randomly getting the error message "Protected Card" when I would turn on the camera or try and delete a picture. Not every time, but often enough to be very annoying. Turning the camera off and back on once (sometimes twice) usually solved the problem, but it shouldn't be happening in the first place.
As if that weren't bad enough, I've just started randomly getting a second error message. After I take a picture the screen will show "Error 5" and then the camera will turn itself off. The picture I just took will not have been saved to the card. Again, turning the camera off and back on once or twice makes it work again, but this is getting ridiculous!
I should also note that Gateway online technical support has been completely useless. When I first emailed about the "Protected Card" error they responded by telling me to make sure I was using a memory card that was compatible with the camera. When I later emailed about the "Error 5" message they responded by instructing me on the proper way to insert a memory card into the camera.
Having had the camera for 3 months I am well past the 15 day money back guarantee, but I am within the 1 year warranty period and I am going back to my friendly neighborhood Gateway store to see what they can do about it. Probably replace it with another identical camera that will do the same thing, but I'm going to give it a try.
Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware!

purchased in Jan 04 the DC-T50. Needed repair for faulty shutdown and "error" message when taking pictures. Send in for repair on Feb 23rd for a "10-day" repair time. Have made ten requests for information about progress of repairs - with no represenative able to identify if, how, or when it will be repaired or replaced. Always telling me they will get me the information - but never do. To date, still only promises to my inquiry... nothing about a deadline as to when it will be returned. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL RESPONSE AND INFORMATION SERVICE.

I bought this camera about a year ago direct from Gateway. I have never once had any issue with the camera... No memory card error, no lens motor malfunction... and all of my pictures have turned out excellent.