Review. Jazz JDC 9 Digital Camera

First, let’s get the important stuff out of the way. I paid $15 for this camera. And for that $15 I got a free flashlight as well. Second, I let the photos be the judge. If you’re looking for a 40 page review that compares every little specification and detail this isn’t for you. There’s lots of others that do this better. 

All right. Here we go: 

Jazz JDC 9 Digital Camera Review

First, some photos: 

Introduction: 

The Jazz JDC9 is a digital camera that is cheap, cheap, cheap. $15 (on sale) got me this AND a free flashlight.

Included in the packaging are: 

1. The Camera
2. Wrist strap for the Camera
3. A USB cable to connect the camera to your computer. *note, that the cable has some proprietary connector on the camera end. At first glance, it looks like a mini-usb connector, but it’s not. 
4. Software CD including driver software and ArcSoft Photo Impression 4. 
5. And of course. The free flashlight

Specifications: 

It says it’s compatible with Windows 98/2000/ME/XP, but I managed to install drivers and download photos easy enough in Windows Vista on my HP notebook. 

I only used it as a camera, but it’s also useable for video clips or a web cam. 

Sensor Type and Resolution: CMOS Sensor, CIF (352×288)

Image resolution options: CIF (352×288 pixels, QCIF 176×144 pixels) 

Lens: Aperature f/2.6 focus free 1.6 ft to infinity

Built in Memory: 2MB SDRAM

Image Storage: CIF: 18 pictures, or 50 compressed. QCIF 64 pictures or 150 compressed. 

White Balance: Auto

Exposure: Auto

Viewfinder: Optical

Self-Timer: 10 second delayed. 

File Format: Still Images: JPEG. Movie: AVI

Power: 3xAAA batteries (not included. It cost me as much for batteries as it did for the camera) 

Real World: 

Out of the box, the first thing I noticed was it’s light. It’s all plastic and boy does it feel cheesy. 

I had to pop over to the store to buy batteries for this, and on the way back I snapped some shots: 

It’s a grey day here in Moncton, so some of this is not the camera’s fault as far as colors, or lack thereof, but it works. I’ll give it that. But, images are soft. and look at the corners of the photo of the truck. the lamp post in the photo is really soft. 

Back here in the office, I tossed the driver CD into my computer, rebooted and the software saw the camera and I was able to save the photos and upload them to my flickr account without trouble so I could add them here. 

For camera that cost me not much more than a large latte and a muffin at starbucks, I suppose it’s not bad. But I bet any camera phone would beat or at least match this. 

For a cheapy camera, the feature set is quite impressive. 

It has: 

 a sleep mode. it will automatically go to sleep after 30 seconds.

a self timer mode

an AVI mode. I didn’t test this feature, as I’m concerned with still photography, not video. 

A continuous shooting mode. If you hold down the shutter the camera will take 3 consecutive photos

a 50hz and 60hz anti-flicker mode

The viewfinder suprisingly is about 100% of what you’ll get but it’s not optically correct that’s for sure. I got dizzy looking through it. Yikes!

Summary

The photos above say it all. They’re small, soft and mushy. Not a sharp one in the bunch.  This might be a good camera to have in absolute emergencies, but most camera phones would do the same if not better.

It’s a $15 camera that included a free flashlight. My expectations were low and it delivered the same. It’s easy to use, has an impressive feature set considering the cost and I had no trouble getting the photos out of the computer. It comes with Arcsoft Photo Impression 4, and although I didn’t use it, installed without a hitch as well on Vista. 

But overall. I’d give this a pass. Buy your own flashlight, and a better camera.