VTech Kidizoom 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.
VTech have launched a new product! While several points in this review can be applied to most Kidizoom products, you may want to read our more up-to-date Kidizoom Twist review.
Kidizoom are one of the bestselling kid’s digital cameras. They aren’t cheap - prices start at around £39 at Amazon - but they have reputation for quality. The product comes with a USB cable so you can upload the pictures to a computer, and it also comes with its own child-friendly software for editing the photos. The photos can also be edited on the camera itself with borders, stamps and sound clips. Three games are included, (a memory game, tic tac toe and a picture jumble), which can also be played on the television if you hook the camera up with the cables provided.
The first camera I bought for my children was a Kidizoom, (it was a present for my eldest son’s third birthday), and it still gets a lot of play time two years on. So out of all of the children’s cameras reviews on this site, this was the easiest for me. Please note, technology moves on quickly so the specifications have changed since we bought ours. There are also slightly different models available, for instance the Vtech Kidizoom Pro Digital Camera has significantly more internal memory, more games and an MP3 player.
Good features of the Kidizoom digital camera:
* The camera can store 200 photos as it comes with 16 MB of internal memory, but a standard SD card can be used to increase this capacity to 1,000 pictures (you will need to buy the SD card separately). Two hundred photos is obviously quite a lot, but my boys can max that out in no time at all. So being able to add more memory is a huge advantage in my opinion.
* The camera is easy for a child to use, in all ways. The camera itself is quite chunky and this makes it heavy, but the ergonomic design makes the camera easy to hold so this doesn’t seem to cause any issues. It has two viewfinders, so your toddler or preschooler wont have to have to squint (parents will know that not all preschoolers have mastered closing one eye while keeping the other open!). Navigation on the camera is really straightforward. Even though my eldest boy had only just turned three when we bought this children’s digital camera, he was able to figure out all the functions on his own and he was able to edit pictures and add sound clips before I was able.
* Which brings me onto its next great feature - the borders, stamps and recording functions are great fun for kids. My eldest loves to take pictures of his parents being eaten by dinosaurs or record a message saying "Ryan is a little monkey" over a photo of his brother. Making sound bytes for two hundred pictures keeps him happy for hours.
* The games are simple for a young child to master and my boys enjoy them, (though they spend far more time taking pictures and messing around with editing functions). Some reviews I read before I purchased the Kidizoom camera mention that the games run the batteries down too fast. Personally, I haven’t found this to be a problem and that’s despite using rechargeable batteries, which don’t tend to be as powerful as regular ones.
* The camera is durable and can withstand being dropped repeatedly and juice being spilt over it. Ours is still good as new and fully functional after two years of use.
* The Kidizoom kid’s camera comes with a case which makes it easy to carry around on days out. I just thought I’d mention this as I also read reviews where people had also ordered a case not realising it comes with one inclusive!
Bad features of the Kidizoom digital camera:
* There’s not much I don’t like about this kid’s camera. It’s only 1.3 mega pixels, so you can buy higher resolution "normal" cameras for the same price. But I tried giving my nearly three year old an old camera of mine and he broke it within a day, and he‘s not rough with his toys compared to many kids. Frankly I’d take durability over picture quality for what essentially is just a toy anyway.
Actually, the picture quality isn’t too bad compared to most kid’s digital cameras. Sure you still get the odd one which is dark, grainy or very over exposed. But my boys also take some which turn out really, really well. The image resolution is higher on more recent models of the Kidizoom camera, which should improve photo quality.
* Some parents might think the camera is too bulky for their child and would prefer something lighter and more portable. I’m not one of them though.
Test Photo:
Verdict:
It’s not the cheapest kid’s digital camera on the market, but I think the higher cost is worth it.
What customers say:
Here are some of the things customers on Amazon have said about the VTech Kidizoom Camera:
"Bought for my daughters 3rd birthday and she LOVES it. It takes good quality pics, has easy to use games and she can even change the settings/alter images herself".
"My 5 year old grandaughter loves this and is having great fun with it. It is very tough and durable for little hands."
"It is such a clever little camera. Does everything I hoped it would and more. Excellent starter camera."
|
