Home > Consumer Reviews > Polaroid PhotoMax PDC-640 0.3MP Digital Camera Kit

I've had my PDC 640 for about a year and its great. I use my camera for photos to e-mail and to post on a personal website. With much of my family over 150 miles away its been a great way to keep everyone informed of events throughout the year.

Highlights are ease of use. The software was easy to install and intuitive to use. The LCD screen on the back of the camera lets you preview your shot. This will let you keep the current pic, or delete it and re-shoot.

The primary drawback is resolution. If you're looking to print your photos you may want to look at another camera with a couple of megapixels. However, if e-mail and web publishing is your focus, this one will give you some nice "bang for your buck".

If you use Windows 98 or 95 and mostly want pictures to share on the internet or to put on internet auctions, this camera is the best bargain around. It does make nice 640 x 480 pictures and is quite easy to use. It's sharpness is good and so is the color. It will focus up to 6 inches from the subject so is good for taking shots very close. It will make close-up pictures of objects 1 inch square. The focus is divided into zones like many vintage cameras ("Close" - "Medium Distance" - and "Far Distance", but it autofocuses within each zone and focuses exactly on the subject. Automatic exposure without flash is good, as is the automatic flash exposure. The Flash Path device is really "the thing" for older computers with no USB ports. Just take the card out of the camera, slide it into a diskette shaped device and put it in the disk drive. From there you can save the pictures to anywhere on your computer. The Polaroid software is ok but really basic. Another picture editing program is needed for much work on editing the pictures. This camera is a nice, handy size and the case slides on a belt to be carried around very easily and handily. It would be a good idea to buy a spare, larger card to go along with the standard one if you plan to take the camera very far from home. Batteries don't last very long but they do last a lot longer than most of the more expensive cameras. It uses 4 standard AA batteries. A set is included in the kit. The kit also comes standard with an AC adapter, which if used around the house, will extend the battery life a lot. There is also a serial connector cable, cable for Mac computers and a cable to connect the camera to a tv set, as well as a little hand carrying strap. Overall, this most certainly is a lot of camera for the money.

I purchased this camera a few days ago and while I can't speak for it's long-term value, I can give you my immediate thoughts. Firstly, you do get everything you need to start taking photos right out of the box. I was able to take my first digital photographs within fifteen minutes of opening the box. The QuickStart card is actually more confusing then it needs to be (for instance it implies that the 2MB Smart Card needs to be formatted but it is in fact already formatted), but the manual is very clear and tells you everything you need to know.

If you need a digital camera purely for web or email purposes, this camera is great. When viewed on your monitor, the images are bright and sharp. Your resolution choices are 320 x 240 or 640 x 480 at three different compression settings. Because of the resolution limitations, the images taken with this camera are not suitable for print purposes unless you like soft and fuzzy detail.

All images are actually taken at 144 DPI rather than 72 DPI (screen resolution). This is an undocumented feature but it does account for the great on-screen images. However, all the images are heavily compressed. Even the highest quality setting shows quite alot of JPEG artifacts (again not great for printouts).

The more light you can throw on your subject, the better the finished image will look. Daylight photos look very nice, while low-light, indoor photos (without using the flash) look grainy. You have a number of flash settings, all of which work great. Overall, the finished image usually comes out very good.

A great feature is the Macro setting. You can take photos of anything within a half inch to a foot and a half from your camera. I've taken photos of some products I hope to sell and they turned out really great. This is something I could never do with my point and shoot 35mm camera.

The floppy adapter is a great feature. Take the Smart Card out of the camera, put it in the adapter and pop it into your computer's disk drive. The files take just a minute or so to transfer. This negates the use of any additional cables to your computer or using the included AC adapter to power the camera while transfers are happening.

Regarding batteries, I've taken perhaps 50 photos at various resolutions over the past few days and the batteries still show a full charge. The LCD screen turns off after 30 seconds which can be quite annoying but I've gotten in the habit of only using the LCD screen to review and delete images. I now use the optical viewfinder to take most of my pictures. This saves on your batteries and while not quite as accurate as the LCD, it works fine.

So overall, for web work or emails, this camera should get four stars. The resolution could be better (even at 144 DPI internally) but you get everthing you need to take photos and get them on your computer quickly and easily. Don't even consider this camera if you want to get printouts made. You'll only be disappoined. Bite the bullet and go with a megapixel camera instead.

Updates to the below: After several weeks and taking shots both inside and out, I'm finding that my inside shots *sometimes* (maybe 1 in 5) come out too dark. It seems that the automatic setting for the flash sometimes incorrectly adjusts the flash to the light level. I might need to set the flash to "on" instead of "auto". Otherwise, the camera is doing great.

I got this camera yesterday so this review will be my first impressions.

1. I was a little confused by the description on Amazon as to whether I would get a 2 MB or 8 MB SmartMedia card. I still don't know but the product description is correct in saying that in the highest resolution you can get 12 pictures. Due to the compression used, I'm just not sure what amount of space that means I have.

2. This package (PDC-640 FL Digital Camera Kit) has everything you might need - AC adapter, TV cable, serial cable, batteries, FlashPath reader, case, wrist strap, PhotoMAX software. It would make a great gift for anyone not a photo expert.

3. The FlashPath reader and PhotoMAX software in particular make it very easy to move your pictures from the camera to a PC. The PhotoMAX software is not a full-fledged image editing application but it can add text, rotate, change contrast or brightness or hue, and organize into photo albums. The software seems to be designed for non-experts.

4. The camera is mostly automatic. Just point and shoot. My first few attempts inside came out very dark but it is possible I didn't have the flash set correctly. After some tinkering of the settings, the pictures came out fine. So it does take a little getting used to all the buttons and settings and how you maneuver through the menus. Still, I hardly looked at the quick start card and after a bit I was doing fine.

5. I got this camera partly because I don't really need anything fancy or with super high resolution. I will mainly take shots and send them to my relatives via email. And for email you don't want to send a really big file like you get with the megapixel cameras. This camera's resolution is plenty fine for my purposes.

So my first impression is... this is great! Just what I need. Quick and easy to use! And at a good price!

I needed a cheap digital camera that had "video out" (many don't), so I could connect the camera to my webtv, to add pictures to my web page and e-mails.The included 8 MB SmartMedia card will hold 45 images at the highest resolution, and 90, 142, and 330 at the 3 lower settings, all way more than I'll ever need. I couldn't see any difference in the various settings on my TV anyway.There is no need to buy the megapixel cameras for web page or e-mail uses. The PDC 640 is an excellent value.