Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera Review
The children's cameras featured on this website were all tested by the reviewer and her two young sons (aged 5 years and 2 years). Please bear in mind the opinions expressed are solely that of the reviewer, and that product specifications and function may have been improved upon since this information was published.
The Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera was the first fully functional camera to be designed with preschoolers in mind.
My boys don’t actually own this toy - we have the VTech Kidizoom camera, which is very similar - so a friend kindly let me borrow her daughter’s for a week. We mostly tested it around the house because it was pink and my eldest son refused to be seen out with a "girl’s camera", but it performed quite well despite being used indoors in gloomy lighting conditions. These were my findings for the Kid Tough camera, (don‘t forget, technology moves on quickly and newer models may have higher specifications and improved function).
Good features of the Kid Tough digital camera:
* It has 128 MB of internal memory so can store up to 500 pictures. I like the fact that you can select the image resolution. My eldest son is 5 now and starting to think more about picture quality and composition, so used 1.3 mega pixels. My 2 year old, unsurprisingly, runs about snapping anything and everything, and doesn’t care what the photo looks like so it was nice to be able to reduce the resolution to 0.3 mega pixels to get more photos out of it.
* The image quality isn’t too bad for a kid’s digital camera and your child will be able to take some good pictures.
* The button for taking the pictures is on the front, where a child’s forefinger naturally falls. This makes snapping pictures easier for really young kids.
* It seems very robust, which is what you want from a kid’s digital camera. Sure, I only had it for a week but my friend has had it quite a while and her kids haven’t managed to break it yet. In construction it is similar to the Vtech Kidizoom, which I’ve had that for two years, and that hasn’t had any problem with being dropped repeatedly.
* I really like the fact that it has a lithium battery so that when you are changing the AAs, your child’s photos don’t get deleted (a problem with other children‘s cameras).
* It has a two eye view finder, which should make it easier to use for toddlers. Both my boys prefer to see what they’re photographing by looking at the LCD screen though.
Bad features of the Kid Tough digital camera:
* I found the battery life to be a bit poor. Perhaps if I had used powerful batteries the boys could have got more play out of it, but it didn’t last long with rechargeable ones.
* The fact it is so easy to delete photos is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, my five year old likes being able to quickly delete any pictures that don’t come out as he planned. But on the downside, we had tears when his toddler brother ran off with the camera and deleted treasured photos by hitting random buttons.
* No fun extras like in-camera photo editing. This isn’t necessarily a big downside, but I’m used to being able to add borders, distortions and silly stamps to photos on my children’s Kidizoom.
Test Photo:
Verdict:
My kid’s both liked the Fisher-Price Kid Tough camera. It’s durable and most of the pictures came out, (although they are grainy and dark in comparison to what you would see on an adult’s digital camera). But my five year old says he prefers his Kidizoom, and I’m inclined to agree with him. The products are similar in price but the Vtech Kidizoom camera has superior features.
What customers say:
Here are extracts from customer reviews for the Kid Tough Camera at Amazon:
"I bought this for my 4 year old for Xmas. We're now into January and she has played with it almost everyday."
"My daughter is 3 now and she loves her new camera. Not to mention this product is really "kids-proof". I really recommend this toy camera."
"The camera is extremely robust, it has been thrown around a bit and the rubberised casing protects it really well."
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