The Canon PowerShot A590 IS
Posted by bensto in Canon on 04 15th, 2008
Canon put essence over style when it designed the PowerShot A590 IS, and in doing so it made a awesome camera. Whereas the clunky-looking 8-megapixel shooter looks bland when compared with colorful, ultraslim, style-minded cameras, its remarkable insides help produce some of the nicest photos you’ll shoot for less than $200.
The chunky, practical design gives the A590 IS a functional and easy-to-handle feel at the expense of aesthetics. A large protrusion houses the camera’s two AA batteries on the right side of the body and also provides a steady grip. The 2.5-inch LCD screen leaves enough room for an optical viewfinder, a convenient sliding mode switch, and several large, responsive buttons. While it won’t slip as easily into a pocket as an ultracompact camera, and won’t elicit any impressed gasps from your friends, the A590 IS simply feels comfortable to use.
read comments (0)Samsung SGH-i450
Posted by bensto in Samsung on 03 29th, 2008
If Compared with the other of Samsung’s U.S. models, the SGH-i450 breaks the company’s slim and silver design. Yes, it’s a slider phone, but it’s somewhat hefty (3.98 inches by 2.05 inches by 0.71 inch; 3.69 ounces) and it sports an eye-catching blue and white color scheme. It’s certainly a nice change and it befits the phone’s multimedia prowess. As we said earlier, it has a dual-slider design that’s similar to the Nokia N95. If you slide the front face up, you’ll expose the numeric keypad. If you slide it down, you’ll see the music touch control.
The SGH-i450 has a bright, vibrant display that supports 262,000 colors and measures 2.4 inches (240×320 pixels). It shows everything well, from text to graphics to photos, and it offers an intuitive Symbian-powered (Series 60) menu interface. You can adjust the brightness, the backlighting time, and the font size.
The SGH-i450 offers two 2-megapixel cameras. The main shooter faces the rear of the phone. It takes pictures in five resolutions, from 1,600×1,200 down to 320×240. Features include a flash, light metering, a digital zoom, a self-timer, a sequence mode, three white balance settings, a brightness control, and four color tones.
Olympus E-3 Digital Camera
Posted by bensto in Olympus on 03 29th, 2008
The E-3’s photos look great. Especially, the colors are gorgeous: saturated, yet some of the most precise we’ve tested in this class (at low ISO sensitivities, at least), with impressive automatic white balance. The camera has a slight tendency to underexpose, but you can easily compensate for that.
The camera disappointingly maxes out at ISO 3,200, but its noise profile looks pretty good; I printed some 11×15 shots taken at ISO 2,000 inside Grand Central Station and found the noise pretty subtle. Nor do Olympus’ noise suppression algorithms overblur.
With the exception of its somewhat awkward design and interface, the Olympus E-3 stands up quite well to competitors such as the Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 and Nikon D300. But if you’re buying into a system, think carefully: Olympus currently offers only 13 pro-quality lenses, and the gap since the last pro dSLR release was about four years. Will that translate into problems for you down the road? Consider it before committing.
Canon PowerShot A470 (red)
Posted by bensto in Canon on 03 29th, 2008
Do you need to get a pretty good digital camera but unexpensive price ? The Canon PowerShot A470 is one of the best examples. With a price tag less than $150, it produces surprisingly good pictures. It isn’t the prettiest camera available and it doesn’t have any flashy features, but for the price, it’s hard to beat.
Canon tries to serve the A470 a much-needed injection of style by offering four color choices: gray, blue, red, and orange. Sadly, colorful accents can’t hide the camera’s chunky, unattractive design. It feels like a king-size candy bar, measuring almost 4 inches long, 2 inches thick, and more than an inch and a half wide. At 7.6 ounces with an SD card and two AA batteries, it also weighs in as one of the heftiest budget cameras available. The lens and LCD screen both jut out uselessly from the body, giving it a bumpy, uneven feel. Compared with the huge selection of budget point-and-shoots on the market measuring just an inch thick or less, the A470 is downright huge. On the bright side, the camera’s large body makes it easy to grip and hold, and its wide design leaves room for large, simple controls that even bigger thumbs can comfortably manipulate.
Noise mars the A470’s otherwise very nice pictures. Grain starts to appear at ISO 200, and becomes quite noticeable at ISO 400. From ISO 800 to the camera’s maximum sensitivity of ISO 1,600, fuzz saturates the picture, giving everything a felt-like texture. Besides the noise, however, the camera’s pictures look good. Fine details appear crisp and clear, especially for a sub-$150 camera. Minor barrel distortion appears on the edges of pictures at the widest lens position, but it doesn’t seriously hurt picture quality. Colors look generally neutral, though they sometimes appear slightly cooler than usual. If you keep sensitivity low, the A470 will produce good-looking prints. Even at higher ISO settings, pictures look clear enough to e-mail or post to the Web.
The Canon PowerShot A470 is a great digital camera. The chunky, sub-$150 shooter doesn’t have many bells or whistles, but it shoots quickly in brighter light and produces very nice-looking pictures. It doesn’t work very well in low light, but that’s a flaw shared by most snapshot cameras in general. If you want to spend as little cash as possible for a decent camera, the PowerShot A470 is one of the best choices currently available.
Frame Your Photo with Ality Pixxa
Posted by bensto in Digital Frame on 03 28th, 2008
The smart digital picture new 8 inch frame has a calendar function for arrangement the automatic display of selected photos on the day you choose! Perfect for celebrating and remembering anniversaries and birthdays for everyone in your life.
With 512MB memory can save up to 100 photos, support to card slot reads more on SD, MMC and MS cards. Correct portrait or landscape orientation also is automatic. Includes wireless IR remote. Plugs into a standard outlet with an included AC adapter. Enjoy the built-in alarm clock and a two-channel speaker; add music or movies and wake up to a soundtrack!
