Single use digital cameras fail on all counts

Rite Aid, CVS and Ritz camera all offer single use digital cameras and you pretty much get what you pay for.  I can’t help but mention the GE E850 at the start here since I reviewed it not too long ago and in that review I said “it was possible to do just slightly worse” well, these cameras are it.  Image quality was far below par, in fact most of them weren’t even usable as 4×6 prints, color tones were off and the processing fees made the whole ordeal almost not worth it.

The Washington Post was not impressed with any of the single use offerings, all three were downright horrible but it’s still worth taking a look at the features.  All the cameras hold 25 images on internal memory, feature an autoflash, image preview and immediate review so it’s possible to delete an image right after you’ve taken it as the reviewer soon found out, correct framing on these cameras took several tries and it was still difficult to tell if the image was properly focused.

After taking the pictures, the cameras went back to their respective stores for processing, these images cannot be downloaded directly to your computer, they must be retrieved and processed by the store where the camera was purchased.

All the images were pretty much a disaster, the ones from Rite Aid were highly pixilated, CVS produced images that had very inaccurate color tones with some coming out foggy and blurry, Ritz produced the best of the bunch with accurate colors but provided a defective CD which was replaced but should not have happened in the first place.

Even back in the “film days” I was never a fan of single use film cameras when even a $50 point and shoot camera would surpass the quality of them plus even now, one time use film cameras still run $10 to $15 and after you’ve bought ten of them then it’s just time you bought a real camera, either film (why??) or digital (yes, do that).

It would simply be cruel to compare these cameras to digital SLRs or any other digital camera worth its weight.  I agree with the conclusion, stay away from these awful awful conglomerations of mediocre technology.

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