Kid tough cameras not worth the hassle or the money
Yesterday, I wrote about a Lego set my son received for his birthday. Today I am going to tell you about "the big gift" that he received from mom & dad. You know, that one gift you save until the end in anticipation of that "this is the coolest gift ever!" reaction from your child?
This year's big gift was a digital camera. Not a kid's digital camera, but a full-fledged adult digital camera. My son turned 7 years old so if your wheels have started spinning wondering why we would give a 7 year old an adult digital camera, read on.
First, it's important for me to get this out in the open right away. I can't stand kid's digital cameras. Sure they are, for the most part, drop proof and uncomplicated to figure out but that's about where their benefits end.
Take for instance the $20 Spiderman camera we bought a little over a year ago and returned a few days later. Saying that this camera is a piece of junk would be an understatement. It has no LCD screen, no flash and the picture resolution is 640x480 (way less than 1 megapixel), not even good enough to print a quality 4x6 print. And don't get me started on how blurry all of the pictures turned out.
Fisher Price gave us a glimpse of hope when they released the Fisher Price Kid Tough Digital Camera. While this camera at least has more of the expected features on a digital camera (LCD screen, flash) the picture quality is still 640x480. Apparently the manufacturers think that kids will never want to print their digital pictures and are satisfied with just seeing them on the LCD screen or on the computer. Bzzzz. Wrong.
I could go on and on with more examples but the results are almost always the same. Kid's digital cameras are built to be banged around, not to take good digital pictures.
This is why my wife and I decided to wait until we thought our son was responsible enough to handle a real, adult digital camera. One with an LCD screen and a flash. One that could take an SD memory card to increase the storage capacity to hundreds of pictures. One that could actually optically zoom. One that was 7 megapixels or higher so quality prints could be produced even after significant cropping to the pictures.
This year we deemed our son responsible enough which is why he received the Kodak EasyShare C713 7MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom as his big gift:
This digital camera was just shy of $84 on Amazon.com and only $24 more than the Fisher Price camera mentioned earlier.
Think this camera is too complicated for a 7 year old? Think again. Our son took a whopping 3 minutes to figure out how to zoom, take a picture, review the picture and delete the ones he doesn't like. He takes the camera with him wherever he goes now to document his life as a 7 year old. And I can't deny that I love looking at the pictures he comes up with.
So far, he hasn't dropped the camera once. Is there some wood around here to knock on?
16 comments for this blog post so far...
August 27, 2008 at 9:40 am
y0mbo
We, too, went with the “kid camera” option at Christmas. The $40 Spongebob Squarepants camera wouldn’t turn off and was complete junk.
We returned it, and gave our son the cash. With other money he had gotten for returned gifts at Christmas, he found an open box Panasonic digital camera for $64 and it was better than the family digital we already had.
No point in going with toys.
August 27, 2008 at 10:05 am
Michelle Hartz
So, where’s his Flickr account?
August 27, 2008 at 10:11 am
Patric Welch
@Michelle Flickr account? Great idea… I’m on it!
August 27, 2008 at 10:12 am
Patric Welch
@y0mbo Glad to hear I’m not alone. And glad to hear my son never laid eyes on a Sponge Bob digital camera either!
August 27, 2008 at 10:14 am
Brian Wyrick
Per your request :)
I let my 3 year old use our canon, flip camera, and my iPhone. Someday I need to collect his movies.
August 27, 2008 at 10:19 am
Michelle Morris
We went with a “toy” digital camera, and now I have hundreds of fuzzy photos of toys and people with their heads cut off loaded onto my computer. It is now in the bottom of a toy box.
August 27, 2008 at 10:37 am
Patric Welch
@Brian @Michelle You guys are both making me wonder if the age limit for “kids” technology toys should be 2 and under. Once they are 3 they pretty much know the technology as good or better than any adult anyway!
August 27, 2008 at 10:40 am
y0mbo
The nice thing about most electronics these days is that they are strong enough to be dropped from the carrying height of a toddler and still survive. Mostly it’s scratches to the lens you’d need to worry about.
August 27, 2008 at 12:26 pm
bnpositive
I agree completely. The “real” cameras are loads of features better than the “play” ones. I didn’t buy my son his own camera, but when I upgraded mine he basically shares the old Sony Cybershot with his mom. Seeing the world through their eyes and perspective is a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll setup my son with his own Picasa Web Album site since it’s free and will probably make it easier for him to manage his own photos on his laptop as well.
August 28, 2008 at 8:35 am
UltraRob
My 5 year old takes good pictures with my digital camera. She also knows how to look back through the pictures. Last year we bought her a kids camera because she was always wanting to use mine. As you point out the pictures are terrible and there’s no LCD screen. I didn’t care too much since it was more to keep her happy and not be begging for the good camera all the time. The worst thing is it quit working after 2 months and I never saw her drop it.
August 28, 2008 at 9:41 am
Patric Welch
@UltraRob The lack of an LCD screen is a deal breaker for me. What 5 year old kid these days doesn’t say “let me see it” right after you take a picture?
August 28, 2008 at 11:04 am
UltraRob
When we had the kid’s phone without the LCD screen, my daughter was 4. Even then she kept asking to see it right away. We’d just tell her she’d see it when we downloaded it to the computer. Of course the quality was so bad they weren’t worth downloading but at least she could see them.
September 07, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Amy
When you think about it, an $84 camera for a 7-year-old isn’t really so outrageous, when you consider that many kids that age have Nintendo DSes that cost $130.
September 07, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Patric Welch
@Amy Excellent point! Heck, even the DS games can get upwards of $40-50. And they’re so darn small and easy to lose.
September 09, 2008 at 11:36 am
Christine Laney
My sister just sent me this link. THANK YOU THANK YOU SIS AND YOU! My grandson will be 4 next weekend. He is also using my $400 Olympus. I was going to get him a “kids digital”. Now, that will NOT happen! I will upgrade him some!
THANKS!
September 11, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Patric Welch
@Christine Love to see comments like yours! Glad I could help you avoid the issues you would have surely run into with a kids digital.
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