Review - Trust SpyC@m 300 Voice - 1.3Mpix Digital Camera & Note Taker

Reviews - Trust SpyC@m 300 Voice - 1.3Mpix Digital Camera & Note Taker

"So often the sirens call you to buy a product… okay so the brand isn't all that good,

but it seems to be packed with features right? - wrong, very wrong"

It's a digital camera. Its got a respectable 1.3 Mega-Pixels, self-timer and has the ability to record video and voice-notes. Its got a great footprint, ergonomics to scare the big-brand manufactures - Why the 46% rating then? The tooth-comb details of this camera don't really live up to expectations.

Lets begin with the quality of the photos. You have two quality modes available to you Low (over 100 shots) and High (under 30 shots) you can mix and match which kind of shot you want to take at the press of a button, but images are grainy. The styling of the camera fools you into thinking that is has an impressively large lens, when really you have a lens smaller then that of a web-cam and a mass of black plastic around it.

The SpyC@m doesn't have any flash so even in medium light conditions, you wont even be allowed to take a photo due to the camera light-sensor kicking in. In relation to other small and nifty cameras with a similar amount of mega pixels, Trusts attempt is very good. The Micro-Cameras such as the Si-Pix and L'espion models may have the size but they become fiddly and extremely impractical.

However the SpyC@m's poorest feature if its power supply. Taking 2x AAA batteries you may think this is okay, and indeed its practical and cheap. But the internal memory is volatile. We tested the SpyC@m on a trip to Hong Kong for a few days and took some good photos… or so we thought.

When it came to transferring our 100+ pictures onto the computer, we had some difficulties with the software. As anybody would, we tried changing the batteries, to find out that as soon as you take the batteries out of the camera all your data disappears with them. What if you run low during your holiday? What if the device lies in the drawer for a few months? All the while your power is being drained away and you could loose your experiences. With no clear mention of this in the manual.

As mentioned the software is 'tacky' with over stylised graphics and lack of explanations as to what the buttons actually do. And if you want to use this camera as a webcam then expect very grainy pictures, or no picture at all if you're in poor lighting conditions.

The Trust SpyC@m 300 Voice, Its not half bad if you want a teeny 1.3 Digicam with no screen. Its better than the L'espion but no rival at all to a proper camera. Retailing at around £70/£80 you could easily afford to pay the extra price for a low-spec digital camera from a reputable brand and comparatively outstanding features.