Dork Adore » Digital Camera

Pentax and DC Comics make super hero camera

Joely Black — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:00:10 +0000

For fans of 70s DC Entertainment stars everywhere, Pentax and Warner have teamed up to add new skins to their Pentax Optio RS1500 camera.

Pentax’s standard Optio RS1500 comes with 10 ready-made skins, which sit behind a clip-on plastic cover and can be switched at will. The camera also arrives with several templates so you can flex your art muscle to produce a custom skin.

But now Pentax has thoughtfully released the DC Super Heroes RS1500 collector pack complete with seven retro skin designs from DC comic range.

It’s all in honour of the upcoming Green Lantern movie. The skins include classics like Wonder Woman (pictured) and add an extra touch of geek glam to the camera’s appeal.

As well as the Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, you’ll get Batman, The Flash and Superman, plus super-villains Catwoman and The Joker. Personally, I’d go for Batman any day.

The camera comes in limited edition box and includes a 4GB SD card and a Green Lantern camera case.

Pentax DC Super Heroes RS1500 Camera (Amazon)

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The best retro gadgets you can still buy

Katie — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:00:23 +0000

Ever hanker for the days when mobile phone batteries lasted all week and calls were never randomly dropped because your phone suddenly suffered a nervous collapse? Miss the days when your watch slightly patronised you by telling you the time in numbers and beeped every hour that went by?

Well, hanker no more, because you can still get most of your favourite bits of retro tech, and we’ve rounded them all up into one place in a format the internet knows and loves.

Classic gadgets worth buying

Casio Digital Watch
£15.94 Amazon

You can still buy these brand new from Casio, complete with backlit screens, all manner of clever stop-watch, timer and beep-fixated functions, and a strap you can fiddle with till it breaks.

Alternatively, search on eBay for the original 80s Casio Digital Watch and you’ll find loads of people willing to sell you the real, slightly scratched deal.

Nokia 3210

Remember when mobile phones just worked? You could ring someone, get connected to that person and then speak to them until you had finished everything you needed to say. Crazy, I know.

These days calls randomly drop in and out, some phones seem to actively repel each other, and you spend more time speaking to someone’s voicemail than you do the actual person.

And don’t get me started on battery life. My old Nokia 3210 used to last for days, and I rarely started a conversation with “my battery is really low so we might get cut off”, which seems to have replaced “hello, how are you” as my opening sentence.

And here it is still, the Nokia 3210: an iconic phone that kick-started this crazy modern day phone addiction, the student’s best-friend and one of the most successful phones ever created.

It’ll never replace the Siemens SL55 as my favourite phone of all time, but the 3210 was the first phone I ever owned, and the gadget that set me off on a path towards tech journalism. And for that I am forever in its debt.

You can buy them in a choice of colours from Lekki, or rummage around for a Nokia 3210 on eBay.

Diana Mini Lomo camera

It doesn’t matter how fancy photography gets, there’s something special about the slightly crap pictures a Lomo can produce. If you have any of those retro camera apps on your phone, you’ll have an idea of what to expect, but there’s something special about the real thing. Just remember to always shoot from the hip… or something.

HP iPAQ h1940

I LOVED my old iPAQs — in fact, they were partly responsible for me starting my old site, Shiny Shiny. Out of sentimentality, I clung onto a 1910 and a 1940 until last year when I decided it was time to re-home them.

Within minutes of putting them on Freecycle, I was overwhelmed with excited freebie-seekers desperate to get their hands on them. Maybe not ideal for tech-heads who want the latest specs, but the thrilled guy who picked the iPAQs up took one for his wife and one for his kid.

Hewlett Packard HP12C Financial Calculator

Unbelievably, these still cost over £66 to buy, which says a lot about how beloved these calculators are. My mother (from whom I inherited my love of tech) fell in love with hers back in the 80s and I think I’m right in saying that she hasn’t changed the battery since.

An amazing bit of early tech that is still so good at what it does you can now buy an HP Calculator iPhone app that mimics its every move.

Don’t ask me how it works, though…

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Dork Review: Olympus Tough-6020

Emma Cossey — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:00:34 +0000

Digital cameras aimed at the sports market often resort to bulky designs and a lack of effort towards anything resembling style.

Step forward Olympus and the Tough-6020.

Boasting 14 megapixels and an HD movie mode, the people behind Olympus claim it can survive up to 5m underwater, -10oC temperatures and a drop of 1.5m.

So it’ll take the pressure off if you plan on taking photos on your scuba diving holiday. In Alaska. Surrounded by big rocks and stuff.

But will the photos look good?

The Tough-6020 is a simple looking camera, with a large LCD screen (replacing the viewfinder), basic setting options and a speaker section for the HD movie function. The buttons are all slim and small, which surprises me considering the fact that it’s aimed at those who need quick and easy access to the correct ones. The on/off button is particularly difficult to press if you’re wearing gloves.

The camera allows you to take a photo with a variety of modes, including ‘iAuto’ (which does all the work for you), ‘Magic’ (which takes the image with various effects) and ‘Panoramic’ (allowing you to create a panoramic image). The latter will let you take some amazing underwater shots.

No expertise needed for taking a photo, just point and shoot. Same goes for the movie function, which is accessed with the red record button.

Let’s recap before we talk about photo quality.

Wins points for:

Design. It’s smart and compact, and weighs the same amount as my standard digital camera.

Element-resisting features. Waterproof, shatterproof, freezeproof AND dustproof? Lovely.

Flexibility of modes. Giving you plenty to play with.

Loses points for:

Narrow, fiddly buttons. Therefore making it difficult to use whilst wearing gloves.

If I’m picking holes, I’m not mad keen on the glossy pink cover, which looks a little tacky.

Price. RRP £319.99. *winces*

And the picture quality? It’s excellent. Clear images, high definition zoom quality, and the video sound is crystal clear.

Conclusion

If you’re idea of a relaxing holiday is abseiling down a cliff edge or mountain biking across the country, then you’ll love this camera. For the rest of us, it might be better to just invest in a waterproof case for your current camera. You can find them on Amazon.

Olympus Tough-6020, Amazon, £254.60

Olympus Tough-6020, eBay, £249.99

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Five digital cameras for kids

Emma Cossey — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:00:42 +0000

I’m not a big fan of children having a never-ending supply of gadgets. Do young kids really need a mobile phone or a flatscreen TV in their rooms?

Digital cameras, like the Lego digital camera on the right (Boots, £39.99), are different though. They promote curiosity, provide permanent mementoes and offer hours of fun.

Fancy letting your child get click-happy? Check out these alternative digital cameras for kids.

Cheap and Cheerful

The Budz My First Digital Camera (Lloyds Pharmacy) on the left is definitely at the cheaper end of the batch at £10, whilst still maintaining the usual features.

They can use it as a webcam and a video camera too.

Star snapper

This chunky Fisher Price Camera, (£49.99, Boots) on the right is easy for little hands to grasp, and has a 1.5-inch LED screen so your child can view the images they’ve taken.

The 64MB of Flash Memory means it can store up to 500 photos.

Multi-Tasking

The Vtech Kidizoom Multipedia Digital Camera, is a multi-tasking little gadget. Not only does it takes photos, but it also records videos and is packed full of games to play through a TV or on the move.

You can buy it from Amazon for £61.40

Sticker Fun

This Sticker Wizard Digital Camera on the right is for the slightly older age bracket. As the name would suggest, the camera comes with sticker software so that the images can be printed out onto a specialised sticker sheet.

You can snap it up for £9.99 from Amazon.

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The 10 most confusing gadgets of the last decade

Emma Cossey — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:00:01 +0000

I’ve lost count of the amount of time I’ve spent puzzling over why a gadget is refusing to work. A recent study suggests I’m not alone in this area.

Research carried out by Confused.com has discovered that consumers constantly come across problems and confusion with their gadgets. And what was the biggest offender? The Wireless Router, of course.

Having spent hours in my old student house sitting on the phone to BT after conceding defeat to my router, I can sympathise with this top choice.

Coming in a close second is the iPod or MP3 player. I’m assuming this is more down to the actual set-up rather than the day-to-day use.

Perhaps one of the reasons behind all this confusion is that in our excitement to try out our latest purchase, we skip past reading the directions. Of the 2,000 participants in the survey, 48% admitted that the instructions book sits gathering dust. This leads to 55% of participants connecting up the leads incorrectly, and 45% incorrectly inserting the batteries (seriously? How hard is it to insert batteries?).

So, aside from the Wireless Router and MP3 player, what other gadgets made it to the list?

1. Wireless router (27%)
2. iPod/MP3 player (16%)
3. Mobile phone (20%)
4. Digital camera (19%)
5. Sat Nav/GPS (14%)
6. Sky+ (10%)
7. DVD Player (9%)
8. iPhone (7%)
9. Ninendo Wii (6%)
10. Video camera (6%)

Source: Confused.com

What gadgets have caused you the most confusion?

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Dork Adore » Digital Camera

Pentax and DC Comics make super hero camera

More stories like this

The best retro gadgets you can still buy

Classic gadgets worth buying

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Dork Review: Olympus Tough-6020

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Five digital cameras for kids

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The 10 most confusing gadgets of the last decade

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