Digitrex DSC3000 Review

Overall Rating

-Inexpensive
-Easy to use
-Very compact
-Decent pictures
-Quick start up

-Flash is default set to off
-Picture quality not quite as good as more expensive brands

The Digitrex DSC3000 is a very attractive little camera. It is manufactured by Apex, the same people that make the DVD players. They have a reputation of squeezing out decent quality products on the cheap from Chinese factories.

Its key feature other than price is its small size. It is about the size of a Snickers bar. For me size matters--if the camera is too big to carry in my shirt pocket I won't take it anywhere.

It doesn't have optical zoom or autofocus. It is a fixed focus point-and-shoot, however it does give you a choice of profile (close up) or landscape (infinite) focus points.

This is a great camera for kids. My four year old takes very good pictures with it--fits her tiny hands perfectly. Idea: If you have an expensive digital camera, give this Digitrex to the kids to keep them away from your prized possession.

The camera turns on and is ready to shoot very quickly. If you have a digital camera you know how important this is, so you don't miss shots.

It has a movie function (AVI), without sound. Works pretty well.

It has an interpolation feature to double the pixel count to 6 million if wanted. Not sure how this works, but it's similar to the Fuji models so I suspect they use the same or similar firmware--maybe built by the same Chinese firm?

The picture quality is pretty decent. Not quite as good as my Sony, but then again the Sony cost three times as much and takes more time to power up. The lens probably is about on par with a $30 point and shoot analog camera.

It has an automatic lens cover, which is a plus.

It takes SD cards for expanded memory. I get about 36 pictures off a 32 mb card.

It has lots of adjustment options typically found on higher-end cameras. However if you just want to point and shoot you can just go at it without worrying about these adjustments.

The only gripe I have is that the flash is set to off. You have to manually set the flash to on (or autoflash) each time you turn the camera on. I guarantee that you will forget to do this and end up with some interior shots that come out grainy because the flash wasn't on. This is likely the problem the first reviewer is having with the camera. Apex should fix this, and post an online patch to download through the SD card for those of us who have the camera already.

If you can get this camera for a decent price (say around $70-80 US) it is well worth it.

If you want to spend more for better quality, check out the new $300 Konica credit-card size 3.2 camera coming out in Spring 2004. The Wall Street Journal rated it the best compact digital out there, beating the $500 Sonys and Canons.