The bad........The good

I love scrapbooking! I have an obsession with taking pictures and what I do with them. With 2 kids, I don’t want to miss a thing. Our daughter is 7 years old and she likes to scrapbook too. She loves pictures just as much as I do and has her own scrapbooks that she has made. She has had those disposable cameras quite a few times because I won’t let her use my digital camera. Scrapbooking is one of those things that we enjoy doing together and for her 7th birthday, we saw this digital camera and had to get it for her. This camera also features Tinker Bell, one of our daughter’s favorite Disney characters. It was a perfect fit!

The Disney Pix Micro Digital Camera (Tinker Bell) is by Digital Blue. It comes in two colors and designs. At least from what I have seen. There is a purple one with a fun design that does not have Tinker Bell on it. The one that we bought is green and the reason we bought that one is because Tinker Bell is on the front of the camera. Both cameras are exactly the same otherwise. There are also many, many other character designs on these cameras like Disney’s Cars, Hannah Montana, and High School Musical.

Description

This camera comes with Software, USB Cable, and a Hand Strap. 1 AAA battery is required but is not included.

This camera is very small. It’s about 2 and a half inches long and about 1 and a half inches tall. My daughter’s camera is green and in the bottom corner it is purple. In the other corner you find Tinker Bell. At the top of the camera, in the front, it says “Sassy” in white lettering. The design is cute with white swirls and stars all over it. There is an area on the front of the camera with a small black circle in the top corner with the viewfinder. There is a bigger circle underneath the viewfinder; almost diagonal to it is the lens. Those 2 circles are attached to each other. Then, above that and a little to the opposite side of the viewfinder, is a little black circle that says “Smile”. That circle is not attached to the other circles. Where it says “Smile”, is where a light flashes after you take a picture. Looking at the circles on the front of the camera, it kind of resembles Mickey Mouse!

On the back of the camera have the same circles. The viewfinder in the small part, in the bigger part is an LCD screen, and the little circle by itself is the delete button. The delete button has a picture of a trashcan on it. The black part of the LCD screen has little white stars on it. On the side of the camera is a white hand strap. The hand strap is plastic and very flexible. At the bottom of the hand strap is a “D” for Disney. The part of the camera that the hand strap is attached to is silver and wraps around to the back of the camera. This camera requires the use of 1 AAA battery which was not included. The battery is located at the bottom of the camera and the covering just slides open. There are ridges that make this easy to do. On the other side of the camera is a USB connector to connect to your computer and download your pictures.

The LCD screen does not display the pictures that have been taken. It only keeps track of how many pictures have been taken by displaying the number of pictures that you have taken. The LCD screen id very tiny anyway and if it did show the pictures, you would have a hard time seeing them. The quality of the pictures taken is only 320x240 Pixel Resolution. I know the more mega pixels a camera is, the better quality the pictures are. I’m used to seeing mega pixels on a digital camera. So I don’t know exactly what 320x240 Pixel Resolution means but I do know that these pictures are not a very good quality at all.

Using this camera

This camera is very easy to use. Our 7 year old daughter loves using it. There is a silver button at the top that turns the camera on. You also push this button to take a picture. You have to use the viewfinder to look at what you are taking a picture of. When you take a picture there is a light that flashes on the front of the camera. You also hear a little beep sound after a picture is taken although it is very hard to hear. Then the pictures taken are recorded on the LCD screen. It’s as simple as that! You can delete any pictures that are on the camera with the delete button on the back. Press it and hold for about a second and it will delete the last picture taken and you will see the number on the LCD screen change. To delete them all, push and hold the delete button for a couple seconds longer and it will delete all pictures. Of course you can’t see what pictures you are deleting. You can also delete your pictures off the camera after downloading them to your computer. It will give you an option to do so. There is no way to turn the camera off manually. After about 60 seconds go by without another picture being taken, it will automatically go off itself.

There is software that comes with this camera. This software must be installed before you can download your pictures. The software is called Disney Pix Micro Downloader and there is also Disney Pix 2 software which allows you to do all kinds of fun things with your pictures. The disc is a CD-ROM so all you need is a CD-ROM Drive. This software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. I didn’t see anywhere if it is compatible with Mac. The installation is really easy and has really easy on-screen instructions. It only takes about 5 minutes to do. After the software is installed, connect the camera to your computer with the USB Cable and launch the Disney Pix Micro Downloader. There is a default directory that will be selected. (My Documents/My Pictures/My Snapshots) You can change this if you want to but we kept our daughter’s this way. It was easier for her and she has a shortcut on the desktop. Besides that, the Disney Pix 2 is software that you can use to edit the pictures and the pictures are automatically found in the My Snapshots folder.

Disney Pix 2 Software

Editing pictures have never been more fun than this! If I say “Desktop” in this section of my review unless I say computer desktop, I am referring to the editing software, not your computer desktop. The editing software is like a desk and it is easier for me to use the word “Desktop”. There should be a shortcut on your computer desktop for Disney Pix 2. Opening that up, brings you to the startup screen. The startup screen is blue with stars all over it and in the center is Mickey’s hand that moves as it is drawing on paper. It will say that it is loading your pictures. As stated before, the pictures that are in My Snapshots is used. You can put your own pictures in this folder from somewhere else to edit those as well. The screen is bordered with blue and in the center is what looks like a desk. In the center of the desk, you have a blank piece of paper. On the left side are icons for different things that you can do. You can draw, rotate pictures, use stencils, cut, paint, erase, there are stamps that you can use, and text option that give you a text box and you can choose the color, size, and font.

On the other side of the desk is your desk drawer. Inside the yellow desk drawer, you can choose your pictures. Here you will also find backgrounds, stickers, windows and frames. The backgrounds include Disney Princesses, Tinker Bell, Disney’s Cars, and Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie the Pooh, The Little Mermaid, Toy Story, Cheetah Girls, Hannah Montana, and High School Musical. The stickers, windows and frames also include the same characters. The stickers also feature Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Etc. You can also choose backgrounds by category instead of looking through them all. To you any of these things all you have to do is drag the pictures or backgrounds, etc to your work area.

I have to tell you about the stamps. These are so much fun! There are things like roses, cookies, buttons, bubbles, butterflies, etc. What I think is fun about these and what my daughter loves about them is that they are animated when you use them. They also make really fun sounds when you place them! The roses actually grow on the screen where you place them, the cookies are dough balls when you place them and make a sound like they are baking and then form a baked cookie on your pictures! The bubbles float and some pop, and the butterflies fly! I think you get the idea. After the animation is over, they stay put where you place them. There is also a disc in the bottom corner of the screen and clicking that will save your picture in the My Snapshots folder. It does not save over the original picture. There is also an undo button, and a broom and the bottom of the screen that will sweep up your desk clearing it for you.

My Opinion

I was hoping for the pictures to be a little better in quality. They really aren’t very good at all. The littlest shake will make the pictures blurry, the lighting has to be just right and even if you think you have taken a really good picture, it still doesn’t look very good. This camera is very durable though. Our daughter takes care of it but you know how 7 year olds are. This camera has been dropped many times and I trust it to hold up for my daughter to hang on to it and keep it in her room. I like the size too. She has a purse already and she carries it with her and her camera is the perfect size for it. If we download her pictures, we do that part for her. She has a lot of fun with it and with the picture editing. It is very easy for her to do and she has actually shown me some things that I didn’t know!

I usually copy some of my pictures into her My Snapshots folder instead of using pictures that are taken with this camera since they all seem to turn out pretty bad. We love the picture editing though. I even use it myself. I took a picture of my daughter, and used a picture frame that had a blue background with 3 Disney Princesses on it. Cinderella was in the middle and her face is cut out. Placing that on top of the picture of my daughter, made her face appear in Cinderella’s! The whole picture is light blue with 3 princesses and my daughter is Cinderella. It is so cute! Even though the pictures taken with this camera are not very good at all, I still give it an average rating. Our daughter likes to play with it whether or not we use her pictures. She uses the editor all the time and has a lot of fun. I do too!

I can’t comment on the battery life since I use rechargeable batteries. With the rechargeable batteries that I have, it will hold a charge for about a week with my daughter playing with it all the time before it needs charged again.

Price/Availability

We bought this camera at Toys R Us for $19.99. I have seen this camera and others with different characters just about everywhere I go. I always see them in the toy section and not the electronics section.