Rating: 
Summary: Good little camera
Review: A couple of years ago I bought a digital camera (640 X 320) to see if I would really use it. Several hundred photos later I knew I needed something better. My digital did very nice landscapes but nothing close up and people looked "boxy". I was hesitant about buying an expensive camera because you never get to see the pictures the camera is capable of taking and I didn't want to spend a lot of money and have the same problems. We saw this little one advertised as a 1 Megapixel and I said "no way". Later I saw the same camera in [local store] with a copy of a picture attached saying "actual picture taken with camera". It was great. I bought the camera and have been very happy. I did not expect it to perform like a more expensive one with lots of features but it has really surprised and pleased me. It takes worse pictures in low light than my 640 x 320 but I am more than happy with its real features. The close up works GREAT! I can take pictures of documents and they are clear and readable. And I can take it to the beach and take shots of the kids playing in the sand and salt without worrying about ruining an expensive camera. And no one is "boxy"! For the price I didn't expect a lot of features but it has performed well above my expectations. I would gladly recommend it to someone who wants a snapshot camera that will take nice "people" pictures without a big investment in funds. My first day at the beach, I took 59 pictures at High definition and was totally blown away by the improvement over my 640 X 320. Now I can take my time and decide which digital camera has the features I want instead of settling because I want to be able to see faces!
Rating: 
Summary: A BMW In Lexus clothing
Review: Appearance wise ,this little camera is a winner. Underneath the pretty skin however ,one comes to the reason of the price. Manual focusing borders on the lottery in finding a sharp image. The viewfinder is not respresentative of the picture.
Controls are slow.
But the BMW of it all, it broke down the 2nd day. No power. No nothing. I returned the unit immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Nifty little gadget!
Review: For the price you pay, this is a pretty good camera! It's handily pocket-sized, takes decent screen-resolution pictures, and stores more than 40 of them at high quality. Macro focus makes for excellent closeup shots. the Pencam 1.3 is excellent for web or non-professional-level digital photography.On the down side, however, it's only good for bright light conditions, high-contrast photos sometimes suffer from aliasing (pixelated edges), the video feature is near-useless, 2 AAA batteries rarely last more than a week, and worst of all, there are no Apple drivers, so I need to do my photo transfers through VirtualPC on my iBook. this is a sweet deal on a fairly good mini-camera. I've been using it for art photos on my photolog, and I'm quite happy with the output, and the fact that I can take quick, discreet pictures without attracting too much notice is icing on the cake. :)
Rating:
Summary: Revision: VirtualPC on Mac not an option!
Review: I need to revise my review directly below: unfortunately, I've just found that VirtualPC on Mac OS X does NOT work with the Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3 in a virtual Windows 98 or 2000 environment. It hangs while downloading images, whether from the Camera Manager or the TWAIN interface in Photoshop. The good news is that Mac-users can still use the MP1.3 with a piece of open-source software called Macam, which even Aiptek's own customer support rep suggested. It's at http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net. Macam is technically a video webcam app, but hooked up to the MP1.3, it will instead function as an image downloader. Hope this helps.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent camera, lousy customer service
Review: I purchased the PocketCam 1.3 for my kids over the holidays. All was right in the world when it worked. To begin, the company hasn't done the necessary paperwork with Microsoft to ensure that when loading the software on Windows XP you don't get the error messages telling you you could really mess up your computer by loading this piece of software. After assurances by the tech support team, I went ahead and loaded the software with no problems. But it doesn't end there. The camera just died in early February. It took the company almost 2 months to get back to me (after more than 5 emails and phone calls to their tech support team). It's now April 2 and they still haven't resolved my issue. When the camera worked, it was a great starter digital camera and my kids loved it because it was easy to use and it took decent pictures. I've since purchased a Canon Elph and I stand in awe of that piece of machinery. I would stick with a reputable company when making any electronics purchases. This company is not one of those.
Rating:
Summary: Decent camera, lousy customer service
Review: I purchased the PocketCam 1.3 for my kids over the holidays. All was right in the world when it worked. To begin, the company hasn't done the necessary paperwork with Microsoft to ensure that when loading the software on Windows XP you don't get the error messages telling you you could really mess up your computer by loading this piece of software. After assurances by the tech support team, I went ahead and loaded the software with no problems. But it doesn't end there. The camera just died in early February. It took the company almost 2 months to get back to me (after more than 5 emails and phone calls to their tech support team). It's now April 2 and they still haven't resolved my issue. When the camera worked, it was a great starter digital camera and my kids loved it because it was easy to use and it took decent pictures. I've since purchased a Canon Elph and I stand in awe of that piece of machinery. I would stick with a reputable company when making any electronics purchases. This company is not one of those.
Rating:
Summary: Bigger is sometimes better....
Review: I purchased this camera during a vacation and quickly found that as long as you are outside, in direct sunlight, the camera works fine. However, if you try to take pictures indoor or in the evening, the quality is lacking. The pictures come out dark if at all. Would recommend a different digital camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Adequate Webcam
Review: I think this is a simple case of deciding what you want. The Aiptek camera tries to cater to consumers that don't know what they want. Its an adequate webcam, an adequate take anywhere digital camera for very small photos or large web pictures for your website or online auctions, and an adequate camera for taking small movies. But with that said, the camera does not excel in any areas. -Webcam- the actual quality is very nice when compared to some other usb webcams (but it is more expensive) and it can be powered by the USB connection. But there are some problems with Yahoo Messenger, so if you want to use Yahoo with this webcam, beware, there may be some minor hiccups. It comes with a decent stand, but the base sometimes will give way to the rigidity of the USB cord and will tend to pull the camera over. The webmovies are almost unusable. Apparently this camera uses some kind of little used codec that most people don't have unless they have the aiptek software... so don't count on sharing small webmovies with other people.
Like all cameras of this sort, low light is its mortal enemy. -Digital camera- the camera MSRP is about $80. There are some cheap sub $100 cameras that are 2 megapixels. I know I personally saw a 3 megapixel camera from kodak for $100. So is it really worth it to buy this camera for 1.2 megapixel resolution? On the plus side, the camera does offer a macro mode which I have used to varying success for taking pictures for online auctions and this camera does have the advantage of being very small (if you are a spy or something?). Also I found the memory adequate if not robust. In all probability you will not be taking many pictures with this camera anyways. -Battery Life- If this is mainly a webcam, the battery life really doesn't matter since it is powered by USB. But if you use this for a camera I found that the camera will last a few days of sporadic phototaking. Purchase of rechargable batteries are recommended. Summary- My recommendation is to know what you want. Do you want a webcam or a small digital camera? If you MUST have both and you can't afford to spend a little extra to buy both, then the Aiptek camera is an adequate compromise.
Rating:
Summary: Adequate Webcam
Review: I think this is a simple case of deciding what you want. The Aiptek camera tries to cater to consumers that don't know what they want. Its an adequate webcam, an adequate take anywhere digital camera for very small photos or large web pictures for your website or online auctions, and an adequate camera for taking small movies. But with that said, the camera does not excel in any areas. -Webcam- the actual quality is very nice when compared to some other usb webcams (but it is more expensive) and it can be powered by the USB connection. But there are some problems with Yahoo Messenger, so if you want to use Yahoo with this webcam, beware, there may be some minor hiccups. It comes with a decent stand, but the base sometimes will give way to the rigidity of the USB cord and will tend to pull the camera over. The webmovies are almost unusable. Apparently this camera uses some kind of little used codec that most people don't have unless they have the aiptek software... so don't count on sharing small webmovies with other people.
Like all cameras of this sort, low light is its mortal enemy. -Digital camera- the camera MSRP is about $80. There are some cheap sub $100 cameras that are 2 megapixels. I know I personally saw a 3 megapixel camera from kodak for $100. So is it really worth it to buy this camera for 1.2 megapixel resolution? On the plus side, the camera does offer a macro mode which I have used to varying success for taking pictures for online auctions and this camera does have the advantage of being very small (if you are a spy or something?). Also I found the memory adequate if not robust. In all probability you will not be taking many pictures with this camera anyways. -Battery Life- If this is mainly a webcam, the battery life really doesn't matter since it is powered by USB. But if you use this for a camera I found that the camera will last a few days of sporadic phototaking. Purchase of rechargable batteries are recommended. Summary- My recommendation is to know what you want. Do you want a webcam or a small digital camera? If you MUST have both and you can't afford to spend a little extra to buy both, then the Aiptek camera is an adequate compromise.
Rating:
Summary: If you want a teeny camera
Review: If you are looking for something for fun, this is perfect. This is not ment to give great quality pictures, if you want high quality spend more money. This camera is for basic fun and works great. As you can see it has no flash so you need to use it in well lit areas. I think it works great!
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