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Panasonic SV-AS10A D-Snap 2MP Digital Camera (Blue)

Panasonic SV-AS10A D-Snap 2MP Digital Camera (Blue)

List Price: $299.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Surprisingly good for its size
Review: I would rank its 3 functions in this order: camera, MP3 player, video recorder. Details on each follow:

Camera: As a 2 Megapixel camera, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the pictures. This won't replace a dedicated camera, but as a device you can always have with you, it does a good job. Its primrary limitations are the very short range of the flash (making group photos tougher than you would like) and the lack of zoom (it's a fixed-focal length lens set at a pretty wide angle).

MP3 Player: First the bad news - you have to use the supplied software to upload music to be played. The Jukebox software "locks" your music in an attempt to add some sort of digital rights management. Which means if you already have a large library of encoded music, you still have a slow import process to go through before you can put music on the device. Painful and unnecessary. However, the quality of the playback is good. I wish the cord on the headphones was longer. If you put a large SD card in this, you can have a 512mb MP3 player that is also a decent camera for not much more than a 256mb dedicated MP3 player.

Video recorder: This is pretty nominal. Resolution is fixed at 320x240 with a fixed (no zoom) wide angle lens. And you cannot move very quickly or the image immediately blurs. So it's OK as a quick use item and marginally better than the short video functions on most digital cameras. But don't buy this for its video ability.

Overall pros and cons....

Pros: Great form factor and design. Like the iPod, this is a device you just have to hold in your hands to enjoy fully. It is a pleasure and a delight (it is also smaller than the iPod!). It is really impossible to convey how petite, yet right-sized it is without seeing it in person. Camera is better than you expect and MP3 playback is decent.

Cons: At less then $200, this would be a deal. At current prices, it is slightly steep. Since they only throw in an 8 Mb SD card, count on getting a 128/256 Mb card yourself for photos/music (another $60-120). Or even 512 Mb if you want to do video capture. But be aware that the video mode is pretty nominal. The lack of any optical zoom hurts as well.

Overall, I would recommend to those lookng for a small, all-in-one device. Particularly if you already have invested in SD cards for other devices. Shop around and aim for as close to $250 as possible.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sound playback nearly inaudible, can't really do MP3s
Review: I've found two deficiencies with this product, that make it (for me, at least) unacceptable.

1. Sound playback (e.g. using the voice recording capability) is way too soft, through the unit's built-in speaker. Its barely audible, even with playback volume at its loudest setting. Using the included earbuds, it provides adequate sound volume (e.g. normal voice level), so its not a problem with the recording sensitivity, but rather the playback. I thought I might have gotten a faulty unit, but I also tried a second one, the playback volume problem was the same. When I demonstrated the problem to a store clerk, even he admitted that it sucked.

2. The product is advertised as being able to play MP3s, but you can't just copy them to the SD card, you have to use the included software to import them, which will wrap your sound files with "digital rights management". The software appears to want to install DRM on your computer, and if you decline, the software just crashes. For me, this is false advertising, and then you also won't be able to interchange your music with e.g. your PDA. Would you buy a cassette player/walkman that required special software to "install" your audio on the cassette, but then only allowed you to play that audio on that particular player?

Aside from the above two problems, the camera functions OK in daylight, but the flash is underpowered, most of my nighttime pictures did not come out.

Its too bad the above two deficiencies are so bad, I really wanted to like this device, its really quite small, thin, and light, a pleasure to carry in the pocket or around the neck. But at its price point, with the above two (easily fixable) problems, I'd rather return it and get something else.

p.s. The box lists an 800 phone number for technical support, but after navigating the voice menu and waiting 10 minutes on hold, the technician tells me its the wrong phone number for this camera. Ugh.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great value except mp3 player
Review: it's a good deal especially for the beginner.
but dont put too much expectation on it. it's so tough to use the jukebox software to transfer data. i cant figure it out until now.
pls help me up email me at jeffsun1008@hotmail.com

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: good
Review: It's useful, and 256 is a good price i almost paid double that. Anyway I would like to give you some good info on it, if your planning yo put music on it record it manually, yes the sound quality isn't as good, and it takes longer, but... you can have about 5x more music on it, i recorded 5 songs onto a 8mb card.
just some useful info.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Great looks, but great shame about the MP3 player facility
Review: Panasonic would have you believe that the SVAS-10 plays MP3, WMA and AAC music files, but after buying one of the units I was dismayed to find it doesn't. To copy music onto the SVAS-10 you can ONLY use the SD Jukebox software (supplied with the unit) The software encrypts your music before sending it to the unit, making it a very slow process. Even worse, you can never again rename, copy, move or edit music files on your computer, as the player will refuse to play them again. Worse still, if you encounter a problem that requires you to reload Windows on your computer, you can't listen you your music files on the player again - instead you have to delete all the files, and copy them from their origional CD's again. So if for example you have coppied your old records and cassettes onto your computer, and then thrown the originals away, you will only be able to listen to them on that computer - if you later buy a new computer, and copy your files accross to it, you cant listen to your music on the SVAS-10.

All the other features on the unit are fine, and the device does look great - but if you want to listen to music, dont bother with the SVAS-10

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: God toy!
Review: Picture quality is just OK for email or memo.
It is not good for print out.
But I always can carry and easily take a photo as memo.

Music player function is very good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy two of them !
Review: You will surely need one as a gift.
It's a very, very nice camera... it is my first Digital CamCoder, and I'm trully satisfied. Panasonic has made an outstanding job with this.
Small, fancy, good resoluntion, lots of accessories. Just enough for me... I have to say that is a camera for traveling (not for a proffessional), also usable as MP3 player... really cool if you dont need more than 2MP.
Amazing.


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