Kid-Tough Digital Camera
© 2006 Fisher-Price, Inc.
If you happen to be the photographer-in-chief in your family, you probably find your kids, not you, in the viewfinder. The $70 Kid-Tough Digital Camera from Fisher-Price (www.fisher-price.com), turns the tables on the situation, by giving kids a camera with a preview screen, auto flash, SD card storage and Mac or Windows USB transfer. You can't miss the large shutter button, which makes a clear simulated shutter noise when pressed. The picture appears on the tiny viewfinder, and two arrow buttons allow for photo browsing or photo deletion if necessary. All aspects of this camera are easy to use. Even the dual eye viewfinder removes the need to squint. Remember struggling to wink when you were little? Unfortunately, the 640 by 480 photos are small and fuzzy in this 0.3-megapixel camera. The upside is that 75 of them fit in the scant 8MB of internal memory; a number that could be in the thousands if you use the SD card expansion slot. The camera runs on four AA batteries. Nobody understands user interface like toy makers, whose products must function with non-readers and short attention spans. Perhaps Fisher-Price should make cameras for grownups.
$65, Windows XP, Mac OSX
Teaches: Creativity, digital photography, spatial relations
CTR Rating: 84%