My daughter loves Barbie,
so when I saw a Barbie digital camera
I thought it would be a great excuse
for her to take pics, and we wouldn’t
waste loads of film when she took dodgy
ones.
*****IN THE BOX******
Included in the box there was
- A 9-pin serial port connector. (To
go in the back of your machine)
- Photo Designer digital camera
- Photo designer cdrom
- User guide
The camera itself is lightweight and
quite large, easy for a child to grip.
It’s silver in colour with a bright
pink flower surrounding the lens.
Attached is a cool pink sparkly strap.
On the back of the camera there is an
On/off button, self timer button and the
shutter button. These are all a lovely
shade of lilac.
Each button creates a different noise
when pressed so hopefully the child
knows whether a picture has been taken
or not.
Self timer button – a series of fast sounding
beeps before the shutter sound goes “click”
to let you know the picture has been taken.
Light adjustment – This camera doesn’t
have a flash so it may need to adjust
to the light. Another sound will beep
to let you know it is adjusting and
you have to wait because there isn’t
enough light yet.
****ON THE CDROM*****
After installing the Cdrom onto you
computer
the normal way, you can then have a
play around in Barbie’s world without
taking any pictures, and believe me,
play I did.
WORLD OF BARBIE
Here you can out your pictures into
Barbie’s world and create pictures with
you and Barbie in her bedroom, garden,
at a party and loads more.
SCRAPBOOK
Save your pics here, and also create
stickers from your photos and postcards
etc.
FLIP BOOK
Create a flip book using your pictures.
There are lots of little features you
can play around with on the Cdrom that
would take an age to list here, but the
above are the main features of the Cdrom.
I bought this for Beckah for Christmas
thinking she could take loads of pics
for herself on the day. She was ecstatic
with it, but we soon found it wasn’t
going to be plain sailing.
The pin that connects to the tower on
our computer has to be shared with the
modem. (I know it wont be like that
for all of you), so each time she wanted
to upload her pics, we had to unplug
the modem, and this became a bit of
a hassle after a while.
Also you can only take six pictures at
a time before the memory is full so uploading
occurs very often when you have an eager
child wanting to take loads of pics. (You
can just imagine it can’t you).
When the camera is connected however
you can take 20 pics, but the lead isn’t
long enough for her to take anything
other than people or things in our bedroom
so she was a bit limited here also.
However when it came to playing on the
Cdrom and adding herself into pictures
with Barbie she had a whale of a time.
She was forever asking to print “just
one more out”, not helping our printer
ink situation in the slightest, but I
couldn’t very well tell her she couldn’t
print anything out could I?
- 16mb ram
- 4x cd rom drive
- colour monitor with 16 bit colour
- Video card capable of 16 bit graphics
- Available serial port for connection.
*****ADVANTAGES******
- Saves wasting lots of normal camera
film
- A good way to introduce them to cameras
- Only cost 20GBP
*****DISADVANTAGES******
- To get sticker printer sheets etc
will cost you a fortune
- Takes a 9v battery that isn’t included
- Only takes 6 pics before you have
to upload them
- Picture resolution isn’t great – 160
x 120 (but then it is only for kids
I suppose)
****MY OPINION*****
I am glad I bought this camera for
her, and it was cheap (I got a half
price
Barbie and the Nutcracker video with
it at the time of buying also).
The novelty soon wore off with her taking
pics all the time, but that could be to
do with me not wanting to unplug the modem
all the time.
It’s great for taking a few pictures
and then adding them into the computer,
but she wouldn’t be able to take it
for a day out because I know her she’d
use all six shots in the first two minutes.
I would recommend buying this for children,
but I think the product
could be improved slightly.
February 13, 1998 (12:00 AM EST)
Mattel Media To Ship Barbie Camera
By Aaron Ricadela ,
Smile, Barbie fans. Mattel Media plans to ship,
this fall, a low-priced digital camera that
lets children snap, print, and e-mail photographs.
Barbie Digital Camera, which will retail in
the mid-$60 range, stores up to six low-resolution
digital pictures on board, said Pamela Kelly,
vice president of worldwide marketing for Mattel
Media. Then, with a serial cord connection,
girls can download the 120 x 280-pixel images
to their PC to create scrapbooks, postcards,
and short movies with the software that's included.
Andy Rifkin, Mattel senior vice president of
creative technology, said the camera saves images
in a proprietary compressed format, then converts
them to one of five standard formats, including
HTML, JPEG, and TIFF.
In a demonstration at the American International
Toy Fair in New York, a Mattel representative
used the CD-ROM software to snap a reporter's
photo, put him in a car with Barbie, and take
them for a spin. The software also lets users
print a 3-by-3-inch image. Barbie Digital Camera
uses an on-board processor Mattel Media is sourcing
from several companies, but not Intel, Rifkin
said.
