Logitech Pocket Digital

Logitech's first digital camera is very small and very stylish. But what are the pics like?

Logitech is best known for making mice and keyboards, but the company is branching out in a range of areas, one of which is digital cameras.

At 9mm thick, the Pocket Digital Camera is very stylish, and very small. If you placed a credit card on top of it, the camera would be completely covered.

The brushed aluminium casing provides good protection against inevitable squashing in pockets and bags. The casing is actually in two parts. Sliding them apart reveals a viewfinder and shutter, and turns on the camera automatically. Sliding the parts together again turns it off and there is an auto-shut off if you leave the camera on and unused for 25 seconds.

This ease of use stretches to all other aspects of the camera, as there are only two buttons. However, there is no flash. Logitech instead uses a technology called Autobrite to compensate for low light conditions.

We took passable indoor images in reasonable lighting conditions but the darker things got, the less capable Autobrite became.

There is a 10-second beeping self-timer but the beeps are too quiet to hear if there is background noise. The camera does not support memory cards, using internal storage instead.

Shots are taken at a standard resolution of 640 x 480 and these can be 'enhanced' by the camera to 1,280 x 960, but this results in a strange, blurry image.

The camera is powered by an internal battery which charges on connection with the PC via its USB cable as part of the picture transfer process.

This may become a nuisance if you transfer at irregular intervals but at worst it just means you have to connect from time to time to charge.

Image transfer is automatic and you can edit images on a PC with the supplied copy of MGI Photosuite LE, a passable if basic image editor.

The Pocket Digital Camera is not exactly feature-packed but it takes a fair picture and is very, very portable. A flash would have made it even better.

Price: £119 (inc. VAT)

Contact: Logitech 01753 870900
www.logitech.com

Also consider: Stylecam Blink
A cheap and cheerful digital camera. £40 ****.