Home > Consumer Reviews > Polaroid PDC 1320 1.3MP Digital Camera Kit

At first glance, this seemed like a good camera at an affordable price. Branded Polaroid, it was expected that this camera be of exceptional quality. After taking a few pictures at each quality level at 1280x960 and 640x480, I viewed them on my computer and saw that the image quality was just horrendous; even at highest quality (lowest compression), the image was not very clear. The LCD doesn't even show a preview shot as you must rely on the optical viewfinder window.

I guess for the price, I would rate this camera as OK for casual use. Anyone looking for a camera that takes clear pictures should look elsewhere.

Regrettably I had to take this little camera back after 2 days use. I was generally pleased with images obtainable which looked good on screen and printed very well (compared to the Olympus C100/D370 which was plagued with digital noise) on my Epson 1440dpi printer.

The package came with power supply, soft case and reasonably good software and represented good value for money.

BUT... in none of the menus is there any way to set the internal calendar and clock, nor is any mention made of it in the otherwise good user manual. Had I realised that there was no Date/Time stamping I would not have bothered buying it in the first place.

The really frustrating part is that the camera has a working calendar/clock in it which boots up to some random Date/Time on insertion of the batteries. I became aware of this when transferring images into the PC. Each image has a Date/Time stamp applied to it by the camera at the time of creation, in my camera's case it was 01/01/2001 1:58am, so my first shot (taken at approx. 3pm on 11th Nov. 2001) was stamped 01/01/2001 2:01am... next shot 01/01/2001 2:06am and so on.

So, if you don't care about when your shots were taken, it's great value. Otherwise buy something else.

Rick

I bought this camera for my daugter's 13th Birthday. She wanted one. I just want to debunk some other reviewers critiques. They must work for Kodak or Canon, who knows? First of all it does have a 2X digital zoom and on replay on the LCD you can zoom much further. It has options for red eye, and flourescent lighting compensation and many others. Secondly, in Record mode, if you turn on the color LCD it displays everything that the optical viewfinder is looking at; so I don't know where this guy gets off saying there is no preview. The video hook up is neat. If you want 35mm SLR resolution--forget it, shell out $400 more and I don't think you will get that with digital. This camera has 6 different resolution settings. I saw this camera on Amazon at $159 and was interested, 2 days later it was at $129 and even with the bogus reviews I went ahead and ordered it. Definitely good value now for the money. I have not yet checked on the time/date stamp deal.

I can't decide like the pre-readed reviews mentioned! I own this camera since a year and all is possible - also that was Rick and the dynamius had critizised! The cam costs 400 Deutschmarks so the price is ok and the features of the cam is all what you need ! I make full-letter sized printouts and they looking well - and what the hell I need 4,1 Mio Pixels? Only that I have to wait half an hour to transfer some pics to my computer? Or will YOU make an ARCH-D-Print, where perhaps such a resolution is necessary!?

The only I sometimes miss is a zoom, but then I remember existing of my legs and go some steps for- or backward - and realy - the image fits like expected...

For further questions dont hestitate to contact me:
maito:moewe@t-online.de

My pictures were fine on the camara's LCD display but I tried numerous times to download the software and even had polariod's Tech support on the phone, but the software would not download not from the CD nor the website. The software was not being recognized by windows XP. After two weeks of back and forth with polaroid tech support telling me it was XP compatible and a consultation with tech support from the manufacturing of my computer telling me to get XP compatible downloads from polaroid I gave up and took the camara back. According to polaroid tech support and on there website the 1320's download software is compatible with XP. On the box when I was taking the camara back I noticed that Windows XP was not listed as one of the operating systems the camara was compatible with.