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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A few improvements and it'd be excellent!, May 25, 2000
Polaroid did a pretty good job on this camera. Let's break it down step by step:ADVANTAGES: 1) 4 MB built-in memory - this is a fair amount compared to other comparable cameras. 2) Compact Flash compatible for adding more memory - Compact Flash cards are relatively inexpensive - it's like film you can use forever! Just drop it in, take the pictures, and when the card fills up, replace it (or use the 4 MB built-in). 3) The LCD display is great. Not choppy - you can even adjust the brightness. It can be turned off to decrease battery drain. Also, immediately after you take a picture, it will display the picture on the LCD (whether you have it on or off) and ask if you want to delete it now? This is great when you take a picture and look at it and immediately know you don't want it. 4) Menu functions. Once you figure it out, the menu is really cool. You change what type of light you will be taking pictures in, you can format the memory, erase all or one picture in the camera, etc. 5) The software is great. You can actually hook your camera up to your computer, and from the software you can change the camera settings without ever touching the camera (you can take a picture, turn on/off the lcd display, change flash formats and picture quality, etc.). 6) Accessories. The kit comes with a TV cable, a nice camera case, a wrist strap, a serial (RS-232) cable for camera-computer connection, BRAND-NAME batteries (that's a shocker - I got Duracell ULTRA with mine), AC Adapter, and software. There is also a USB port as well - I'm going to look into this because serial transfer is SLOW.... DISADVANTAGES: 1) Slow downloads. I have a PII-400 w/ 128MB RAM. Still, I downloaded 15 1024x768 (Fine quality mode - read more about quality modes further down) pictures that I took, and it took almost a minute per picture. 2) There are 2 settings: 1024x768 (they call this XGA), and 640x480 (they call this VGA). Each of these settings also has 3 quality modes (SuperFine, Fine, and Normal). SuperFine is the only one worth taking pictures with. Other modes are grainy. 3) Battery Life. Actually, every digital camera on the face of the earth drains batteries almost instantly - so this really is just a disadvantage among ALL digital cameras. That's why I'm glad this thing came with an AC Adapter. Just be sure to use the AC Adapter whenever you can (especially when you are first playing with it and fooling around with the LCD - that thing REALLY drains batteries!). 4) I wish this thing came with a USB cable. It has a USB OUT on the camera, but it's a tiny little connector and I have no idea what type USB cable to buy for it. Yeah, it comes with a serial cable, but that is SLOW. USB has GOT to be faster. 5) As everyone else has said, NO documentation whatsoever. Just get on the Polaroid website and pull off the product manual - that. Strangely enough, the product manual doesn't come with the camera! All in all, a GREAT camera. Buy it and you won't be disappointed.
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