Written
: 11/7/99
The Sony Digital Mavica is one of the simplest and most convenient digital camera I've ever used. There is no need to mess around with USB or serial cables when you want to transfer your pictures to the computer. This is because the Digital Mavica uses a floppy disk to store its pictures. Once you fill the floppy up, just pop it out and stick it in your A drive. Any image viewer can view the saved JPEG photos.
Each floppy can hold up to 40 images. This
isn't too bad. Bring a box of 10 floppies on a trip and you can take up to 400
pictures. The nice thing about using the floppies is that you don't have to go
back to your computer to transfer the pictures. Any computer will do as the
camera requires no special software.
The Digital Mavica uses a Quick Access 2X High Speed Floppy Disk Drive. This
technology developed by Sony allows for double the speed when recording or
playing back images. The high speed spindle motor combined with new DSP also
allows for quicker JPEG compression. It takes just 4 seconds to write the file.
You take pictures with the Digital Mavica using a large 2.5" full color LCD
screen. This is one of the biggest screen provided on a digital camera and I
found it much easier on the eyes than the smaller screen on the Epson PhotoPC.
My favorite feature of the Digital Mavica is 10X Zoom Lens with Auto Focus and
Auto Macro Capability. This is equivalent to a f40 to 400mm zoom lens in a 35mm
camera. This lens gives you lots of flexibility to compose your pictures just
the way you want. The auto macro capability allows you to get as close as one
inch to your subject. Very cool indeed. Also the battery last long enough for
you to take up to 950 non flash photos on one charge.
For all its nice features and convenience, the Digital Mavica is far from perfect. It is lacking one major feature which makes this camera hard to recommend. You'll find out what that is after we check out the specs.