Back during tax refund season, I decided I wanted to jump into the world of digital cameras. I selected the Concord Eye-Q Duo 2000 because it was also being bundled with a Lexmark Z-33 printer and was on clearance at Wal-Mart for $132 - the camera itself is available for $80.
The camera itself offers a lot of features for its affordability and simple style. Most impressive is that it offers 2.0 Megapixels, where most cameras in this price range are 1.3 Megapixels or less. Second most impressive is that it allows you to use SD or MMC media cards to expand its storage capacity, where most cameras only offer a maximum of 8MB internal memory and no option for storage devices.
The camera offers a USB 1.1 interface to transfer files (with an included USB cable). You can either set it to DSC mode to browse and transfer files to and from your computer via your operating system's file browser (it shows up as an external USB storage device, and can in fact operate just fine as a USB flash drive), or you can set it to PC mode for graphics programs, webcam software, etc. to pull images off the storage device or for live images. There is also a feature to let you connect your camera to your television, VCR or another video device via an included RCA connector, which is great to show your photos and video to those who do not have a computer.
UPDATED NOTE: having used this camera for nearly a year, my appetite for speed has increased dramatically. While haing on-board USB 1.1 to transfer files from camera to PC is convenient, it is SLOW at 11Mb/s. I'd HIGHLY suggest investing in a USB 2.0 High-Speed PCI card for your computer and purchasing a USB 2.0 media card reader such as the
SanDisk SD/MMC USB 2.0 media card reader that I recently purchased. 480Mb/s data transfer will just blow you away!
The included software was ArcSoft Photo Impression 2000 and Video Impression 1.6, both of which offer basic but adequate support for creating new photo albums, video files, etc.
The camera will either take JPEG photos in a variety of quality settings (from high-resolution 1600x1200 to low-quality 640x480) or low-quality AVI video (without sound). I've used both and I've been very satisfied with the performance. The camera also offers a 4x digital zoom mode, but this is never a substitute for real, optical zoom.
The camera has a small color LCD display to set up your shot and preview it afterwards. The included on-camera file browser will let you delete photos if necessary.
Battery life is low, but that is to be expected. I would suggest purchasing a set of rechargable AA batteries, no less than 1800 mAh. Recently I've seen that Rayovac has come out with a 15-minute rapid charge battery & charger, $12 for 4 AA batteries and $27 for the charger, I may make this investment. Lithium-ion AA batteries are also very good, but this can get expensive if you plan to use this a lot.
A further note on storage: invest in an SD media card. A 64MB card is only $35, and it allows you to store up to 118 JPEG photos at 1600x1200 high-res photos or 900+ 640x480 medium-res photos (not tried it with low-res). That's a LOT of photo taking capability for very little. 128MB cards are around $50 and 256MB cards are around $70. Further, since this camera can act as a USB flash drive, it gives you VERY convenient portability for a quite a bit of data, and saves you the expensive of buying another USB flash drive.
The best place to use this camera is outdoors with adequate lighting. Indoors it is acceptable, but you need to play with the settings to get the best photos and you MUST use the flash to accomplish this. Low-lighting settings should be avoided if possible, especially when recording AVI video. Also, you should try to focus on shooting only still or slow-moving objects. The camera has only an ISO 100 equvilency rating, so you're not going to get great action shots out of it at all.
Overall this is best used as a replacement or complement for your point-and-click 35mm or Advanced Photo System cameras. Once you are comfortable working with a digital camera, you can step up to a better quality camera, and not lose your investment in the process.
