Stylecam Blink II Digital Camera

Bought this camera for my daughter. She loves it. Great for her taking photos around the house. Easily fits in her pocket and shoots good pictures. Holds lots of photos, 300 pictures at 320x240 or 70 pictures at 640x480. Easily uploads to computer. Very durable too. Only downfall is that it runs off a single AAA battery. It drains quickly in about 5 hours. At that time you have to download your pics or you lose them. Also battery drains even while turned off. Would recommend not putting batteries in until ready to shoot, and soon as finished head to a computer or laptop if on vaction, before they are gone.

I would not recomend this camera to anyone that actually wants to capture their lives in photographs... When I fist got this camera I was very pleased with it... The pictures are of pretty good quality for the small price. I took a few pictures and loaded the software in.... It didnt work. I reloaded it a few times and finally got it to work. I figure it works and then bring it in for some special events. Now, generally when you take pictures you figure their safe on a camera. Not with this one. My photos have been erased several times just because the camera got tapped, or knocked. And when it does work, if you take over 20 pictures, there is bound to be one picture that is "corupt" That is, it will not uploaded and the computer will not recognize it. What does this mean? You guessed it! You cant get any of your other pictures off of the camera. Then, if you ask their "helpful website" they tell you need to reset the camera which basically means deleting all of the pictures, and defeating the point of even trying to take pictures. I am gonna get rid of this camer ASAP and recommend you steer away from it!

So my Blink II cam arrives today in the mail and immediatly my mind is flooded with questions.. will this little toy live up to my expectations? Will it be worth even the [money] i spent on it? how big is this 'mini cam' in reality? how will it handle color? After briefly looking over the camera i returned to the product's box and continued to dig through its contents. I was of course looking for the manual and drivers for the camera but i found something more entertaining first... The camera comes with a *HIP* *IN STYLE* necklace which can be used to hang your awesome miniature camera around your neck! Being the hipster that i am, i immediatly decided to vogue with the camera as a necklace in the mirror. Okay so the necklace thing is just funny. The necklace does make a great cat toy though, more on this later.. I've had several bad experiences with low end digital cameras in the past, to be honest i did not expect this product to be any different from the low end 'toy cameras' i'd messed with in the past. Previous 640x480 resolution 'toy cameras' i've had have ALWAYS had terrible color balancing issues, problems with movement, terrible software, and low storage capacities. Fortunatly this camera has none of the problems those older cameras had! The camera can shoot in two resolutions, 640x480 and 320x240. It has an 8 (eight) megabyte internal SDRAM memory, which is HUGE for storage of pictures at this resolution. The huge memory translates into a large capacity of 70 images at a time in 640x480 and 300 in 320x240. Previous low end cameras i've paid twice as much for had maximum capacities of 12 images at 640x480, a capacity of 70 on internal memory is out of this world to me. Unfortunatly this camera does NOT come with an external memory slot, so the capacity of the camera is stuck at what it comes with.. still, 70 images is NOT bad. The software is a GOD SEND. Both cameras i've had bad experiences with in the past had TERRIBLE problems with software, the software was twain driven (meaning you use a photo program to pull images in) in the past and just generally [stinks]. The software included with this package works VERY well and it's easy to use! When you plug the camera into the USB cable provided a window immediatly pops up with options. Now don't be fooled, just because the software actually pops up, that is not necessarily a sign everything is working okay. Both of my past low-end cameras popped up similar windows beautifully.. the [bad] part always came when the camera was actually transferring pictures to the computer. As i mentioned before, this software is a god send, it works beautifully. The camera is so small that it can derive all of its power from the USB cable when it is plugged into the computer, this is a VERY good thing. nine times out of ten with the older generation cameras, picture download problems were the result of low battery power... since this sucker is powered by the USB cable while connected, it downloads all pictures reliably every time. It should be noted that the software provided only works on windows, if you do not use windows, you may need to see if there are drivers/software options out there to help support this camera. The camera suprisingly handles COLOR excellent. Personally, my jaw dropped when i saw how perfect the colors looked in tungsent/flourescent lighting, perhaps i am just used to and frustrated with my 1 megapixel camera, but i think handling these lighting situations so well is amazing in such a low-end product. of course the blink camera does not defy digital camera limitations, shooting into light or in the dark results in [bad] pictures, however the camera does have an AWESOME feature where it will not take a picture and beeps if there is not enough lighting. the camera can capture 'avi' movies (allegedly)... unfortunatly the camera doesnt capture into a format of avi that my windows media player recognizes very well. so the video capture thing is kind of funky, however the camera dupes as a webcam! i didn't notice that it was a webcam on the description i read of the product on amazon.com, but i don't have a webcam so i tried it out and i like it! as i mentioned earlier, the provided 'hip, in style camera necklace' that came with the camera makes an excellent cat toy, when testing the webcam i first tried to film my cat samwise playing with the necklace.. i explained to samwise in great length that the camera does not capture at a very high framerate so he should not move very quickly.. of course samwise did not listen, so much of the video is just a blur.. of course, for those of us HUMANS who understand the concept of framerate and motion blurring low frame rate video.. the webcam feature works much better.. the only down side of the webcam feature is that it came with a cradle which is meant to snap onto a flat panel moniter, so my bulky retro normal size moniter cannot hold the cradle correctly. In conclusion, i am VERY happy with this product, the camera is cheap, it runs on ONE AAA battery, it doubles as a webcam, it stores 70 pictures, it has excellent color balancing, it lets you know when you are a being a dumb photographer shooting in the dark, it is TINY, it comes with a cool complimentary cat toy, the software provided is great (though it is windows only!), and it just generally rocks. i think this little thing would make an EXCELLENT intro camera for people interested in a cheap digital camera!

Like many people who bought this camera, I was lured by its price and its compact size. So is it worth even this small amount? After months of owning it, I'd say no. The picture quality is low everywhere except for in the best outdoor lighting conditions. Also because the batteries die quickly, you are forced to download the pictures right away into your computer, which prevents you from traveling far with it. Even though it's not a huge amount of money, it's worth saving this amount for a better camera.

I bought myself this tiny little digital camera... And I do mean tiny. It's about three inches by two inches, less than an ounce without its battery, and it cost about $35.00 (at discount price). It came in a horrible, terrible, ugly box that made it look like complete trash. But it's a nice little thing. It's brushed titanium and light blue brushed aluminum. Gives it a posh/stylish/modern look. It can take 300 pictures at 320x240 or 70 pictures at 640x480. No flash, no focus, no nothing. Just good for LiveJournal snaps and scrapbooking, and silly spontaneous email pics. Gotta have good light, too, if you want crisp pictures. Luckily, it has a clever little light sensor that triple-beeps and refuses to take the shot if it's too dark. If it's too dark, you can take grainy pictures, but they're good enough as mementos and Kodak moments. Useless as prints, great for online stuff. Gotta use this camera for what it's good for... don't try to treat it like an inexpensive "real" camera, because it ain't that! The so-called "big downside" is that it runs on a single AAA battery and a RAM memory chip, which constantly drains the battery, even when the camera's powered off. It will only run about 5-7 hours on the battery and then, if you haven't downloaded them already, you lose all your pictures. Poof. It has a snazzy little USB interface that zips the pictures onto your hard drive automagically once you plug it in. Then you can start over. But I can imagine one day I'll forget to promptly offload, and be completely upset at it for eating the snapshots. I chose this camera because it was steeply discounted due to its unpopularity. The critics said, "Great camera, but I have to be around a computer ALL DAY or I lose my pictures!" And I thought myself, "Self - you ARE around a computer all day." And so I think it'll be a fun little toy.

My main issue, the selected MODE such as indoor/outdoor, high/low resolution, is not saved between power off/on. Its always defaulted to INDOOR, HIGH RESOLUTION whenever you turn the power ON. And actually, you get nice picture with INDOOR setting when you are outdoor. So, I dont mind the INDOOR settings.Also remember to download and DELETE the pictures as soon as possible. This saves the battery. For picture taking, need to have plenty of light and distance between 2-10 feet. Anything longer or shorter and you will lose the focus.

I ONLY OPENED THIS CAMERA TODAY SO I CAN'T RETURN. I LEARNED THAT ALL PICTURES LOST WHEN BATTERY RUNS DOWN SO MUCH IMMEDIATELY TRANSFER TO COMPUTER TO SAVE. ALSO, PROGRAM DID NOT WORK WHEN PUT IN COMPUTER FOR INSTALLATION, NO FLASH ATTACHMENT APPARENT SO ALL PICTURES OUTDOORS. SO BASICALLY I HAVE A PIECE OF JUNK-NOT WORTH BARGAIN PRICE. WISHED I HAD READ REVIEWS BEFORE I BOUGHT.

The camera seems to delete all my pictures for an unknown reason. And the quality is not that good. think about it .3 megapixels is bad. spend a lil bit more and get somthing better.