Product Reviews

Just when you thought digital cameras couldn't get any smaller, Kodak has brought out a new version of the PalmPix, its camera companion to Palm m500 handhelds, boasting a higher resolution than ever.

The PalmPix is a tiny device, measuring just 70mm x 50mm x 20mm when closed. Folding it out doubles its width, but only 15mm of this is visible after it has been clipped on to the back of the Palm. The lens is used for manual focusing, but for most users the three preset positions - landscape, portrait and macro - will be adequate. The macro setting is particularly well thought-out, with a focusing distance exactly equal to the length of the Palm's stylus. Kodak has even provided a tiny indentation below the lens in which to rest the stylus while taking macro photographs.

The camera draws its power directly from the Palm, so there are no batteries to worry about, but it will be a drain on your Palm's batteries. Opening the application on the Palm enables the whole screen to act as an LCD viewfinder.

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It shows the image clearly and brightly, if a little fuzzily, but at three frames a second, the preview would be inappropriate for moving subjects. You can choose one of three resolutions to capture the image, from 320 x 240 pixels to 600 x 600 pixels.

The buttons on the Palm can be used for both image capture and zoom (up to 2x zoom) and there's even a 10-second self-timer built in. Saving an image after capturing it takes up to 30 seconds, so it's not a tool for taking dozens of snaps in rapid succession. The images captured download automatically to your Mac when you perform a HotSync operation.

The limited space on the Palm is obviously a factor. Apart from the 185K needed for the application, each image takes up around 100K at 640 x 480 pixels, and more for higher resolution images. Fortunately, the PalmPix software offers a solution - as well as being able to view, name and delete images, you can also save them as JPEG files on a Secure Digital or Multimedia card, if you have one.

Palm reading

And so to the final concern - image quality. Images tend to appear over-sharpened and have a somewhat dithered quality, with noticeable blocking in the shadows and a high degree of artefaction.

That said, you don't buy a camera like this to create great art, and its convenience, size and cuteness far outweigh quality considerations. All the pictures we took were clear and bright, with good colour balance; the maximum size is easily large enough to create convincing prints. The PalmPix arrived too late for Christmas, but it could make a good birthday present.