The First "Disposable"
Digital Camera?
Dakota Single-Use Digicam
( Ad is from the Sunday paper Wolf
Camera flier as of 7/26/03 )
---------------------------------
For a few months, there have been rumors
on the web about a "disposable" digital camera soon to hit store
shelves. Kodak recently released their "Kodak
Plus" digital 35mm toss away camera, which was a huge
disappointment. Lots of folks thought this was the rumored camera, but it
is simply another version of a $10 or so one time use cameras with a twist; when
you turn it in for developing you automatically get your pictures back on a C.D.
picture disk so you can use them online as well. Hardly a
"digital camera", since you can get picture disks from any roll of
film you turn in upon request these days, anyway.
Enter Wolf Camera, selling the
"Dakota" branded single-use digital camera. Could this be the
rumored item?
Finding Information -
A Journey Through Wonderland...
My area ( metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia )
has literally over 70 Wolf Camera locations in the metro area. Of those,
only around 14 are listed as selling the Dakota. I called several of these
stores to get more information. Wow - what a ride! Just about every
single store gave me different information regarding what the camera's
resolution is, what you get for the price, or what features the camera
has. Most had not even seen output from the camera, so could not tell me
whether or not it takes decent photos or not. Several knew nothing about
it other than that they knew they had them in stock at the store.
Regarding resolution ( image size ),
answers ranged from 640 x 480 pixels as this camera's maximum resolution, to 2
megapixels ( 1600 x 1200 pixels ). Upon FINALLY getting one store where an
employee seemed at least to know about this item, I was told this is a 1.3
megapixel camera, with an image size of 1280 x 960 pixels.
What You Get &
What To Expect...
After so many calls, I had
finally found one Wolf employee who knew about these cameras, so I dug for as
much info in as short amount of time as possible. This is again, a 1.3
megapixel "no thrills" digital camera. The lens is a fixed-focus
lens with no zoom ( digital or optial ). There is a small built in flash
unit for indoor shots, and I was told indoor flash shots were pretty poor (
sticking to outdoor sunny day shots yields the best results ). There is no
color LCD on the back, but instead a small black and white status window that
tells you how many photos you have left, the flash setting, etc. The
camera has enough built-in memory to take 25 digital images, at which time you
must take it in to Wolf to have the images extracted. Via a special
machine, they'll remove the images and put them on a C.D., print them into
prints, or both. The camera is kept and sent back for recycling and
resetting so it can be used again. Their purchase price is $10.99 ( U.S. )
for this camera. To my knowledge, Wolf is the only U.S. store carrying
this camera at the time of this writing ( 7/26/03 ). U.K. residents might
try their local "Boots" store or other larger stores to see if they've
made their way over there yet.
I wondered if the $10.99
price included a free picture C.D. or if that was an extra charge. Again,
each store gave me a completely different answer. One said
"yes", the picture C.D. is included, but you had to pay $11.00 extra
for actual prints. Another said you must purchase the prints, at which
time you also get a C.D. free. The last said they were not sure, and
thought it was "up to the individual store". ARGH!
There were only a couple
of people who had seen actual output from this camera, and none of them seemed
terribly thrilled with it. For email photos they said it was fine as
screen resolution and clarity was ok, but they all said that even the 4 x 6 inch
prints weren't anything to write home about with colors being a bit off, and
details a bit fuzzy. I was told that there will be future incarnations of
this camera coming out soon, and they were told the next model "might"
be a 2 megapixel model with a color LCD on the back. How accurate this was
considering everything else, is anyone's guess.
Opinion / Conclusion
I'm not completely sure
the time has yet come for a toss away digicam. I mean, you can get cameras
now for only just above $100 that provide "ok" output that you can
reuse. You can have a photo C.D. made from any film you turn in, and the
one-time use film cameras seem to provide better quality prints than the Dakota
does. In essence, it's a very neat idea, but I'm not sure how practical it
really is.
My biggest disappointment
however, was with the lack of information Wolf employees had on this item.
I was told anonymously by one manager that Wolf has a very common habit of
putting out sales fliers with new items in them that the stores know little to
nothing about. No training, no info sent to them, just a "here it is,
deal with it" mentality by their corporate H.Q. VERY sad, and not at
all good business, as the customers suffer.
I'm not close to any of
the stores that do carry these, but I will try to get my hands on one and do
some tests regardless ( can't promise when, though ). If any readers have
some pics they've taken with one, feel free to email me a sample along with your
name and details by clicking HERE.
Based on what I've read, and heard - would I recommend them?
Probably not.
- end
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