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Creative CardCam Value

Creative has always been known as the pioneer of PC Sound technology with its legendary SoundBlaster series. The last few years have seen the success of Creative technologies in the PC peripherals market with its display cards, optical drives, input devices, etc. Their Nomad MP3 player is still one of my personal favourites. So you can guess that the prospect of reviewing a product like the Creative CardCam Value got me pretty excited. Yep, I'm just your average sucker for punishment.

Looks like an angel
Overall the camera looks quite cute. At 90 x 6 0 x 15 mm, it's thin, sleek and small enough to easily fit in the palm of your hand and still leave your fingers free. The camera consists of a viewfinder, a lens, a speaker that makes beeping sounds when you click pictures, and a tiny digital display to show you the camera modes. Being a Value cam, it doesn't have an LCD viewfinder, and a flash, which would have been a great help in low-light areas.

Overall, it's definitely one of the better-looking budget digital cameras out there. The shiny metallic front panel looks nice and it fits in your pant pocket and still leaves room for your cell phone.
The packaging contains a USB cable, a Driver and application CD and two AAA batteries (just what the camera requires). The software bundled is quite impressive with Ulead PhotoExpress, and Creative's own PC-CAM Center and WebCam Monitor. Just about everything to ensure full utilization of the camera.

Impressed? Don't be. This is where the good part ends.

Digital Nightmare
The packaging was great, the camera looked extremely sleek, but once I started using the camera - that's where the dream ended. The CardCam Value supports two types of picture modes ? a high-resolution mode where the photo size is 640 x 480 pixels and a low-resolution mode, which takes pics at 320 x 240 pixels. Sadly both the outputs are downright abysmal! In the high-resolution mode, the images come out looking badly smudged and highly aliased with a high amount of jagged edges sticking out. Even the colours were just not right. Though the low-resolution mode gave better results with the pictures not looking as smudged and having reduced jagged edges, the overall photo quality was pretty bad.

The CardCam Value also has an auto timer and a rapid shoot mode that takes a bunch of pictures quickly in the low-resolution mode. The camera has a 2 MB internal memory, which stores around 22 high-resolution photos and 99 low-resolution photos. Yes it's a bit too little, but I guess you really can't ask for more at the price it's going for.

Another big problem is the battery consumption ? It's HUGE! Around 18 high-resolution pictures and a couple of low-resolution ones drained off my two AAA batteries. I'm not sure whether is was a problem with the piece we received, but for a camera that doesn't have an LCD screen or even a flash, that's a motherload of battery consumption. I seriously recommend getting a bunch of AAA rechargeable batteries or the "Value" won't be valid for you anymore.

And as a Webcam
As a Webcam, however, the Creative CardCam Value is not too bad. The picture quality is pretty OK, and the software support ensures everything works without too much trouble. But there is still one problem, which makes it not the best option as a Webcam either. There is no stand! The sleek look of the camera works completely against you when you have to use it as a Webcam, since it's tough getting the perfect angle where your face would be comfortably visible.

The Bottom Line
It's sad to see that the box boasts about CardCam Value being primarily a digital camera that can also function as a Webcam, when in actual performance it's the other way round. At a price like Rs. 3,500 it's probably good enough for people with a really tight budget looking for a digital camera, without really caring for the output quality. But it's simply got way too many drawbacks for me to recommend to anyone else.

Test Unit Sourced From: Compuage Infocom Ltd., Mumbai.

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Creative CardCam Value

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Creative CardCam Value

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creative PD1080 drivers download

Creative CardCam Value