How good is a sub R100 digital camera ?

Yes - for those of you that does not know this - you can get a digital camera for below R100 these days. But as with everything it life - you get what you pay for.

Some of you my recognize this camera from local sites where it is being sold as "mini spycam" or "keychain camera" and they go for between R200 and R400. If you buy them directly from Hong Kong via eBay thay usually cost below R100 which includes the shipping as wel..

Don't get all excited though, there are some things you should know about these babies. They market the memory size in bits - so it will say something like 16mbs internal memory - that means below 2MegaByte (good for about 15 pics). The memory is not flash memory, it is low grade SD RAM and when the battery is removed or runs down you loose all your pics. The more pics you take the more battery is needed to keep them on the camera. It only takes one AAA cell - tricky business then

It has a numic LCD that displays the status and number of pics. It connects to the PC via USB and you need special software to get the pictures from it. All it really does do nicely is be a webcam.

Here is what it looks like :


Below is a comparison of the type of pics this camera takes compared to a 2megapixel cellphone (Nokia 6233, no autofocus, no flash). The Nokia was set to take pictures at 640x480 (0.3 Megapixel) so that is matches the resolution of the pictures taken by the mini cam. The camera en phone was held side by side and took the shots at the same time.

Would love to know what you all think of the mini cam and if it is worth the price tag. I think it is exactly what I would expect from a sub R100 digital.

The pics below have the mini cam picture first followed by the cellphone version.

Mini Cam 1:

Nokia 1:

Some more.

Just a few more pics of the mini cam vs the cellphone. To see them all go to http://s517.photobucket.com/albums/u338/cheapcamera/

Nice review.

It looks a bit like the one that came with my National Geographic subscription. I think the battery was worth more than the actual camera.

Yeah - there great toys and thats where they stop. I got a "pocket" one from Cash Converters for R15. The inner geek in me could not resist it.

...and like most of my geek junk, will end up as a present to some friends kid.

Other than the slighly bluish tint, they look much the same. Or do the full size versions differ more?

Very good observation you have made there - however the mini cam suffers more from beer bottom lens than the average cellphone. That is because the lens of the Mini Cam is probably some sort of mould that is injected onto the sensor. It also does not take the picture from directly in front of the lens. Compared to the phone the mini cam has what seems to be a permanent 2x zoom on it. Those are the fullsize verions as the mini cam cannot go beyond 0.3MegaPixels.

I still think it is OK value for money if you consider it to be less than R100.

had one of those for a few years now and when i get the light right it works alright. i have used it as a webcam too but now gave to my daughter in the usa when her webcam went on the blink.

I think if you bought the camera that comes in your average cellphone, without the phone, it would probably cost about the same

This mini-cam strikes me as the digital equivalent of a Lomo/Holga...

Well for less than R100.00 what can you expect but that?

I just remembered something. Some years ago my uncle got a lot of "hampers" from sales reps that included some cheap-o all-plastic digital camera. The quality varied - various levels of bad - but the one thing that was pretty universal is that none of them adhered to any standard for transferring pictures (none took cards) and all required their own, pretty horrible, windows-only software. I hope that has changed, because this could be a nice gift for a young kid.

Nope - unfortunately this one also needs very dodgy windows only software to read the pictures off the SD ram. I think a proper USB mass storage capable controller chip would probably double the price of the camera

Very nice thread.

I take it this is the same camera that gets sold on bidorbuy on just about every "Crazy Wednesday" or "Snap Friday" auctions from various sellers?

I guess it looks OK for around R100 .. but I've seen them selling for much more.

redarrow said:

I take it this is the same camera that gets sold on bidorbuy on just about every "Crazy Wednesday" or "Snap Friday" auctions from various sellers?

I guess it looks OK for around R100 .. but I've seen them selling for much more.

Click to expand...

Yes - local seller will rip you off. It is better to just buy it directly from Hong Kong over eBay.

i think a camera for less than R100 is like a prostitute for R20

remybfg10k said:

i think a camera for less than R100 is like a prostitute for R20

Click to expand...

LMAO!

remybfg10k said:

i think a camera for less than R100 is like a prostitute for R20

Click to expand...

Although the camera will not give you any life threatening diseases