Argus DC1730 Digital Camera

Am I the only fool who seems to have bought this camera?

Last Christmas, my five-year-old daughter was dismayed to see her little four-year-old cousin whip out a 35mm camera and start snapping pictures. My daughter has always enjoyed photography and I've trusted her in the past with my $249.00 Olympus digital camera. She took some marvelous photos during our Disney World vacation last year. But somehow it never occurred to me to buy my daughter her own camera.

Seeing her hurt expression at the sight of her little cousin with a "grownup" camera, I took her aside and asked if she'd like to buy her own camera with her Christmas money. She nodded and asked if she could get a digital camera like mine. Unwilling to spend that much money on a camera for a five-year-old, I told her I'd probably be able to get her a digital camera without an LCD screen, but she insisted on the screen. To her, the ability to see the picture immediately after taking it was the "coolness" factor...and to be honest, that is part of the beauty of digital photography.

So I embarked on a search to find a digital camera with an LCD screen for under $100.00, and preferably under $75. My search in the local big box stores proved fruitless, sending me to the Internet. After searching my favorite websites with no success, I Googled digital cameras for under $100 and came up with an impressive list. Only one of them included an LCD screen and was quoted at under $50.00. I clicked on the link to arguscamera.com and read the stats:

Argus DC 1730 digital camera
Built-in color LCD screen
USB connectivity
Autoflash feature
8MB internal memory capable of storing from 24 images at high resolution to 187 images at low resolution
300K pixel VGA sensor resolution
f=4.9mm, F2.8
Powered by 2 AA batteries

List price: $49.99

I decided to order it sight unseen without researching any product reviews. That was my first mistake. Clicking the "Order" button sent me to a different website: Value1Direct.com. I ordered the camera and waited. That was my second mistake. My total, including shipping, came to $54.99

All this occurred on 12/30/04.

Nearly two months, one lost camera, several long-distance phone calls and a complaint to the BBB later, the camera finally arrived by FedEx a week ago. What a waste of time and money.

To begin with, the camera arrived in a heat-shrinked plastic package much like those toy action figures, which should have tipped me off that this camera wasn't much more than a toy either. I destroyed a pair of scissors and cut my fingers twice trying to open the package.

The package contained the camera, USB extender cable, software and installation CD and 2 temporary AA batteries that contain enough power to take up to 10 flash photos. They lasted for 12 photos, after which I replaced them with regular alkaline batteries. After taking roughly 100 pictures at low resolution, the batteries are about halfway depleted. There's a hole on the side of the camera to loop a handstrap through, but the handstrap doesn't come with the camera. Go figure that one out. For under 50 bucks Argus could put an LCD screen on a digital camera but couldn't spring for a handstrap?

Surprisingly the camera itself doesn't look or feel cheesy. It's small, about the size of a deck of cards, and it's quite sleek. But don't let appearances fool you. The 1" diagonal LCD screen is tiny, and the images all appear blurry and green. The controls are fairly intuitive, and you can take pictures right out of the box so to speak, but the documentation is all on the enclosed CD, so any setting adjustments have to wait until you've installed the CD and reviewed the user's manual.

The CD contains the software for downloading pictures, the user's manual, and Arcsoft photo editing software that also allows the user to e-mail pictures, create greeting cards, organize and e-mail photos, and a number of other nifty features. All the software, including the user's manual, are easy to navigate.

"What about the pictures?" you ask, and rightly so. What's the point of an inexpensive digital camera with nice software if it doesn't take decent pictures? If that's what you're looking for, you won't find it here. I took several photos right out of the package at the highest resolution and they all appeared grainy on the LCD screen. But I reserved judgment until I installed the software, adjusted the settings and downloaded the pictures, both of which were simple. I should have gone with my first impression: lousy pictures! No amount of editing, even with my more sophisticated Studio Line photo editing software, could improve the pictures taken with this camera. Even at the highest resolution the pictures were all grainy, lacking in detail and had a blue-green tint that I could not correct.

This camera is little more than a toy, not for serious photographers or even casual photographers who only want decent pictures with little fanfare. Save your money -- and your sanity -- by doing the following:

Research cameras thoroughly before you shop.

Buy the camera at a store where you can actually see and feel it before you buy, and ask the sales staff questions. However, don't expect more than stock answers if you're shopping at Best Buy, Circuit City, Target or Wal-Mart -- at least not in my neck of the woods.

Stick with a known name brand! Although in some cases you sometimes luck out with a no-name, in the consumer electronics world you're only asking for trouble. No-name brands mean cheap and inferior.

In the end I decided not to return the camera. My daughter was so excited to finally have it that I didn't have the heart to take it from her. She's perfectly happy with it. Unfortunately I don't share her enthusiasm.