Digital Dream 2900

If you're more financially challenged than cash rich, you'll be pleased with the latest offering from Digital Dreams: the Digital 2900 digital camera.

Unlike other technologies that you can now buy for as little as £50, the digital camera has stayed at a price which makes you think long and hard before buying one.

The price tag of the 2900 has been kept down by clipping the internal memory and getting rid of the large quality screen to help you take and review your pictures.

The camera has a measly 450Kb of internal memory, enough to take six photos at the camera's highest quality setting. If you want to take more than a handful of pictures, you're going to have to get a memory card to slot into the side. This camera accepts the popular CompactFlash standard, so expect to pay around £30 for a boost of 8Mb or so.

The viewfinder is based on those found in camcorders - it's a colour screen, but it's small and has a low resolution. This means it's easy on the battery life, however, which can be a bit of a hidden expense on cameras with fantastic, power-sucking screens. Connecting the 2900 to the PC is as easy as USB, and the software is functional but nothing special.

The camera only takes pictures up to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. The picture resolution of more expensive cameras is expressed in millions of pixels - the latest models have more than seven million, with resolutions of about 2000 x 1500 pixels. The 2900 provides 300,000 pixels to play with, so the end result is effectively a tenth of the quality.

Despite its low resolution, the images came out reasonably clear. There's a lack of detail when taking long-distance shots of scenery, but close-ups of faces fared better.

It's a long way from being the perfect digital camera, but for £140 it's near the price level where you can get one for taking quick and easy images that are small enough for emailing or posting on the web. And if you buy it from Tesco before May and June, you can get the camera, an essential 8Mb memory card (worth £30) and a memory card reader to keep permanently connected to your PC (worth £40), all for £180.

Contact Digital Dream 0800 3897404