Pretec SDIO Smartcam
Last
Friday a week ago, I received my latest gadget. I was fairly excited as I had
been waiting over one month for this item.
The Pretec Smartcam is SD PDA camera ,compliant using the SDIO interface. It's the
slimmest SD-Camera in world with 1.3 megapixels. Not only a digital camera but also a digital camcorder.
You can immediately watch your recorded video and send it out by email or
transfer them to your desktop PC.
The
specifications are as follows:-
|
Image
Sensor |
1.3 MP
CMOS Image Sensor |
|
Power
Consumption |
<80ma
@3.3V |
|
|
5cm to
infinity |
|
Digital
Zoom |
2x or 4x |
|
Capture
Still Resolution |
1280x960,
640x480, 320x240 & 160x120 |
|
Strobe |
Built-in
Flash |
|
Frame
Rate |
Up to 20
frames per second |
|
Image
Processing |
Colour/
Gamma Correction Edge
Enhancement/ Smoothing Brightness
/ Contract Auto
White Balance |
|
Audio |
Add
Message for Still Image Synchronise
with Video |
|
Timer |
3, 6 and
10 seconds |
|
|
|
In the box
you get the installation CD, SDIO Camera and that’s about it. I inserted the CD
into my PC but could not find any Palm OS driver/software.
I
contacted Expansys who informed my
the latest palm os drivers were available to
download from their website. So I installed the palm os
drivers on my T3. The Palm PC software would not download.
So what
were the pictures like – who knows? My T3 crashed. After resolving the crash I
tried again. This time a got a partial preview after 6 seconds. I went to take
a picture and once again my T3 crashed. This was becoming a joke.
I have
sent an email to Pretec 7 days ago and I have not yet
received a reply, even though I offered to help them test any new software . Also, I have sent an email to Expansys
and also placed comments on their support forum. Expansys
are still awaiting a resolution from Pretec.
In the
meantime, I have returned my Pretec Camera.
So until
the drivers are resolved , the Pretec
SDIO Camera scores as follows:
Size,
looks - 9/10
Specification- 9/10
Quality of
pictures 0/10
Value for
Money 0/10
I was
hoping to provide pictures etc but alas this was not possible. If the
software/drivers situation improves I will add a further review to this
article.
In summary, a disaster and huge disappointment.
Any
feedback email me at gavin@pda247.com
Review by
Gavin Fabiani-Laymond