MikeD03C's Full Review: KB Gear JamCam 3.0 Digital Camera
This camera was bought for an 8 year old for $80 for the Christmas of ’99. It was very enticing at the time for $80, but soon after opening it, even back then, it was a disappointment for the money.
The camera body is all plastic, which is acceptable and preferred for a child’s toy. It features a viewfinder, a pictures left LED, a yellow button for all functions but shutter, and a shutter. The whole feel of this camera is cheap, cheap, and cheap (but this is only an $80 or less camera..). It is powered by a 9 volt battery.
You turn on the camera by pressing the yellow button. Then you can choose between three qualities by holding down the yellow button and clicking the shutter. R1, R2, or R3. R1 is 640X480. R2 is 320X240. R3 is 240X180. After cycling through the picture quality settings twice you come to CL, which will clear memory if you release the yellow button.
To take a picture you turn the JamCam on, select a quality and press the shutter. One thing I don’t like about this camera is the shutter release. It gives the worst tactile feedback I can imagine. It’s like a mushy “click”. It is very easily pressed on accident, which is a problem because to get rid of that botched image you have to clear the whole memory. You don’t have an LCD to review images on the back. This partially defeats the purpose of having a digital camera in the first place, to review images on spot!
This camera is USB, which is a very nice touch. Just plug in the USB cable with the square end into the camera, and the rectangle end into a USB port. It should be noted that JamCam included a USB cord, where HP did not on my HP 930C, which is somewhat funny considering that this is an ultra-budget camera.
The Microsoft Picture It software is quite nice for novices and downloads images easily, I prefer Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro if Photoshop isn’t available myself. For exporting to universal formats and light editing, Picture It will do just fine for most users.
Now to the reason you bought this thing, Pictures! This camera does not feature a flash, so you will needs lots of light. The only pictures of mine that come out with anywhere near enough light are those taken outside in bright sunlight. Inside photography just isn’t practical. I wouldn’t bother going below R1 (640X480) either, anything below that is pretty much useless. Even in well-lighted conditions the picture quality is pretty mediocre. If it had a flash I might find it more useful for indoors but it does not. The 8 allotted shots at 640X480 is hardly enough so the 8 year old who uses this goes to the lower quality one more often just to get more shots. She doesn’t bother anymore though because you can’t make out most everything taken at these levels.
Even with the pretty much useless pictures, you don’t get much storage either. I’m not sure how much memory is available internally exactly but according to the camera’s pictures left LED, when memory is empty there are this many pictures available: R1/640X480 8, R2/320X240 26, R3/240X180 48. As I mentioned above to get photos where you can make out anything you at least have to use R1, which only gives you 8 pictures.
I really cannot recommend this camera to anyone. Camera prices are dropping dramatically and you can get something with a flash that is Megapixel like the Kodak3200 for $150 at stores. Do not bother with this because in our case it ended up as an unused, overpriced toy. This camera lays dormant on a shelf now, I do use the included USB cable for my HP 930C though. At least I got a free USB cable out of this.
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