THIS little camera is simple. Open the box, put in the little Lithium battery and it's ready to use. The camera is small (102 x 61 x 31mm) and, without a roll of film, the motor to wind it and the batteries to drive the motor, very light at 110g.
There are only three controls: power on, shoot and a button to delete images stored in the camera. It will hold eight pictures of "high" resolution (493 x 373 pixels, 24 bit colour) or 16 lowres ones (320 x 240, 24 bit) The lens is fixed focus and there is no flash.
It comes with software and cables for transferring images to an IBM compatible or Macintosh. Installing the software is not a completely simple job, but once in place it adds to the fun quota. As well as utilities to save pictures from the camera and control the camera (setting resolution, deleting stored pictures or making it take pictures at intervals) there are tools for manipulating images.
One good feature of the software is the adjustment of colours, brightness and contrast. Most image programs make the use select values with the benefit, perhaps of a single preview picture. The Kodak Photoenhancer software allows the most important section of the picture to be selected and then offers nine previews of what that section will look like with the different levels of the adjustment in question.
There are also filters for making the picture look as though it was stamped on metal, shot through a bubbled window or taken during a cartoon earthquake. Very basic stuff compared to the tools available in Photoshop, but something completely new for someone who usually has their pictures developed, printed and handed to them with out the possibility of any intervention.
Simple and fun though it is, there are anomalies. It is aimed at the personal user or casual hobbyist, but the lack of a flash rules it out of some situations where we stake pictures spontaneously. (It's light sensitivity is equivalent to 1600 ASA film, however, and it performs well in low light.) And there's not much point in taking an eight shot camera on holiday unless you're prepared to bring a computer too to download the images.
What the DC2O (299 + VAT) offers is low running cost picture taking for the price of a low end SLR or a good compact camera. In its favour is ease of use, but limited image quality and storage and the lack of a flash curtail its practical usage. Good fin, but strictly limited.