Home > Consumer Reviews > Minox DM 1 Digital camera

I bought it on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt for my wife, over her objections that she would never use it. Within a week I had to buy another memory card ! It's very easy to use - almost "intuitive" in that things do what you expect them to do, and fully lives up to all the expectations created in the product blurb.

Pros - in addition to all the advertised goodies, the battery is a standard phone battery, so you can get spares and recharge them in advance using a phone charger !

Cons - if you're taking stills in lowish light, get some practice at standing still before hitting the shutter button !

Disappointed by my recent purchase of a Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 digital camera I made a gift of it and bought a Minox DM1 digital camera, which is a shirt-pocket-size miracle. In addition to taking digital pictures (with an option to print the date on each shot or not, a useful basic feature that the hyped Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 lacked), it is also a video recorder and player, a web cam, a voice recorder, a flash light (!) and a quality MP3 player. The camera comes with an 128 MB internal memory (more than double the 56 MB of Sony's high-end ultracompact digital cameras) which can be augmented if you buy an easily inserted SD card of up to 1 GB capacity. Thus, you can take your pictures in the generous internal memory and store approximately 350 MP3 songs on the SD card. (Playable file formats: JPEG [EXIF2.2]/ ASF [MPEG4] / WAV / MP3 / WMA). The quality of the sound is at least as good as that of an IPOD when using the supplied earbuds but, unlike the need to buy external speakers to play an IPOD for others to listen also, the DM1 contains an amplifier and a speaker that yield an acceptable sound.

You can recharge the Li-ion battery using either the supplied AC/DC power adapter or the supplied USB cord that doubles as a USB connector and charger. The DM1 also came with A/V cables to show photos or videos on TV. Finally, unlike the IPODs that force you to buy a lot of unsupplied accessories, the DM1 came with a padded case. Also, unlike Apple's undesirable "proprietary" restrictions that code the contents of your IPOD so that you cannot use it readily as a USB flash drive, the DM1 is also a plain flash drive allowing you to move up to 1 GB of data through the SD card and another 128 MB through its internal memory. The DM1 also plays music through a car's audio system with the accessories such as a cassette connector or an FM transmitter.

CAVEAT: The DM1 is NOT a point-and-shoot camera but is more like a professional camera. If you set the shutter to Automatic you may get blurred images in low, even medium, lighting conditions. The key is to change the shutter speed from Auto to 1/125 sec. Then check the scene on the 2" LED screen and if it looks right, take the picture. If it looks dark you can increase the Exposure from 0.0 gradually up to +1.8, and/or increase the ISO value from 100 to 200, even 400. Conversely, if the picture looks too bright, reduce Exposure and ISO value. So, what you see is what you get.

DISADVANTAGES
Nobody's perfect, so the DM1 came with two disadvantages.
(a) Uncertain availability of service and parts for Minox digital cameras in the USA; however, one could check with MINOX USA Inc., 438, Willow Brook Road, Meriden, NH 03770, Tel.(603) 469-3080, before giving up. I did not get any warranty from my first US seller, but the US seller of a second DM1 camera I bought did send me a manufacturer's warranty card that still lists Leica Camera as a USA service contact, although Leica and Minox parted company in 2005. Of some warranty consolation is the legendary Minox quality that promises flawless performance.

(b) The supplied manual I got is in German with a skimpy Quick Installation Guide in English, which urges you to download an English manual from Minox's German site. The web address given produces an "error" so you then access the Minox site in Germany, click on the English flag for the English language version but you see no window for service or downloads. You do a site search for manuals and you get a list of manuals not including the DM1. Desperate you do another search for DM1 inside the Digital Cameras Manuals page and, lo and behold, at last you see Minox DM1 (deutsch) and Minox DM1 (englisch), the latter being what you need.

You download it in .pdf format and print it; however, even though it is 56 pages long it is more a collection of the DM1's numerous features and specs than instructions on how to use it. For instance it does not explain the difference between Light Meter Center (measures light in the very center of the picture) and Central (measures light in a wider area in the center of the picture). Finally, Minox's German web site invites you to submit technical questions by email. I did but got no reply. Nevertheless, as the DM1 is cute as a button, you set aside some weekend time and fiddle with it until you learn how to use it by trial and error.

These disadvantages are the price to pay for something that runs circles around Japanese ultracompact digital cameras and IPODs.