POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: A Voyeur’s Worst Nightmare
Written: Mar 16 '02 (Updated Jan 23 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: One of the cheapest digicams on the market.
Cons: It is overpriced at any cost.
The Bottom Line: I would not buy it to snap pics. This purchasing choice I would nix. It’s bad for photo-craving moms. And even worse for Peeping Toms.
Sordid-1's Full Review: Polaroid PhotoMax PDC 640 Battery Charger
I would like to locate the designer of Polaroid’s PDC640 digital camera, punch him in the ear, demand my money back, and shove this inferior hunka hunka burning junk straight up his hindquarters. Sideways.
It displeases me that much!
The Polaroid PDC640 digital camera costs around $100 new (though, if you search hard enough, you can probably locate them in garbage dumpsters throughout the country.) While this seems ideal for a miserly pervert like me, I would urge my fellow sick, twisted, cash-strapped, garden variety voyeurs to dig a little deeper into your snazzy, loose-fitting khakis and lay out the extra bread to get a superior digicam. You will thank me later.
There are any number of reasons that you, too, will desire to smash this camera into itsy bitsy, tiny, eensy-weency, miniscule, little shards of electronic componentry if you slip into the “hey, I think I’ll go ahead and buy this cheap piece of dung!” trap. Let us explore a few.
It’s unseasonably warm today, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, all is right with the world. I pull my Polaroid PDC640 out of its case and begin deciphering its simple instructions. It comes with the camera itself, some strap things, some cable things, a little flashcard thing, a power adapter, and a disk. After dinking around with it for a bit, sticking plugs wherever they seem to fit, pushing buttons, and occassionally checking the instructions, I seem to have the thing mastered.
Since it’s such a bright, shiny day, it’s a fair bet that Gigi, my modesty-deficient next-door-neighbor with the super-enormo funbags that go “boom boom boom” whenever she walks, is in her backyard sunbathing topless to perfect that all-over tan which benefits her so greatly in furthering her career at the Kit-Kat Club. As I wander into my backyard to admire my burgeoning rake collection (something I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time doing on sunny days), I just happen to notice that Gigi is, in fact, sprawled out in her backyard sans bikini top. Dammit, have I got nice rakes.
Gigi should prove the perfect guinea pig (albeit a large-breasted one) to herald my entry into the world of digital photography. I pop that dinky flashcard and a number of batteries into that bad boy and non-chalantly wander onto my back patio for a brief foray into the seemy underbelly of voyeuristic stealth. I raise the camera to eye-level and look at the 1.8” LCD display screen. Well, I think that’s Gigi there. It could be a cactus, might be a hot-air balloon, might even be a closeup of a roast beef sandwich. I dunno. The image just isn’t very clear through that dinky little display. I determine I’m not close enough and need to use the zoom lens. As I fumble around for the zoom, I seem to have a hard time locating it. Why would that be? After scanning through the instructions again, I ascertain the reason why. The Polaroid PDC640 digital camera has no zoom lens.
REASON #1 NOT TO PURCHASE THE POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: It has no zoom lens.
Okay, I’m obviously at a disadvantage here, and am going to have to REALLY turn the stealth up a notch as it will be necessary to sneak to a close enough proximity that I can get clear images without the benefit of a zoom lens (which this camera does not have.) As I mosey over towards the west wall, I inadvertently step on a stray rake. PA-TOING! Man, have those things got some nasty recoil. Various stars, planets, and small yellow birds whiz rapidly around my head in some sort of concentric formation, as I stumble about and utter many obscene words. I can only hope that I have not aroused Gigi’s attention in the way that only a foul-mouthed, camera-toting, dizzy, stumblebum voyeur could. My vision is really too blurry to tell.
After crouching down for a couple minutes to regather my bearings, I break the offending rake over my knee and hurl it in the general direction of the garbage can. I continue toward the west wall, trusty Polaroid PDC640 in hand. Once I am close enough, I peer over the wall. Gigi is still there, looking splendiferous in all her ray-soaking glory. I once again raise the Polaroid PDC640 to eye level and glance at the dinky display screen. Nothing. Blackness. No display. No lights. Pushing all the buttons has no effect. Dead as a doornail (however dead that is.)
REASON #2 NOT TO PURCHASE THE POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: It sucks down battery juice with a voraciousness unparalelled in the annals of camera history.
Okay, I shall not be deterred. I’m obviously going to have to go electric. The A/C power adapter is attached to a cord approximately five feet in length, which does not exactly leave me with an adequate range of motion. Using that, I am still in the realm of (could be a cactus / could be a hot air balloon / could be a roast beef sandwich.) I will obviously need an extension cord.
I wander into the garage, the knot on my forehead starting to throb, and locate an extension cord of adequate length. I plug it in at the house and start to uncoil it toward the west wall. Gigi very well may notice me doing this and inquire as to my motives. I devise a stunningly clever story, something about the newest addition to my rake collection, the highly-vaunted Rakeco 2000 Electric Rake™. She’d surely buy into that ruse, Gigi’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer (especially when compared to me, the supra-genius master voyeur.)
I plug the adapter into the extension cord, and, after pushing all the buttons several times and smacking the camera against my leg very hard, once again see the display. I set the image quality to the best possible and am quite dismayed to find that I can take a maximum of twelve photos. That’s only six per breast! What a rip-off!
REASON #3 NOT TO PURCHASE THE POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: A 2mb flash card is thoroughly inadequate.
While trying to adjust the settings, I inadvertently snap a picture of my own foot. Then, in the process of trying to delete the image, I lose the entire display.
REASON #4 NOT TO PURCHASE THE POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: I’m sure I got a defective camera, I’m sure some of them work adequately, but I have to turn the thing off and on multiple times and mess with it for minutes at a time before I can even get it to show me the display.
As I am trying to delete the unwanted picture (I am, after all, a voyeur – not a foot fetishist), I hear a soft voice speaking to me. Gigi has come to meet me at the fence.
“Whatcha doin’, neighbor?” she asks.
“Ummm… I just got this new digital camera,” I tell her, averting my eyes as I’m suddenly aware that I am staring at her still-uncovered funbags, “and I wanted to take some pictures of my funrakes, errr… my rakebags, ummm… my bouncy gardening things, but the damn thing won’t work right.”
I am one smooth character. Just call me Slick.
“Oh neat,” she replies, “let me check it out.” With astounding athleticism, Gigi hops the fence with little effort. Boom boom boom.
She takes the camera from me and starts examining it. “Oh, neighbor,” she states, “You have chosen poorly. This is the Polaroid PDC640, one of the cheapest, not only in price, but in quality, digital cameras on the market. It has a well-earned reputation for fragility, unreliability, and inadequate features. It is a battery hog, only comes equipped with a 2mb flash card, and takes grainy, often unrecognizable, shots. This is definitely the Yugo of digital cameras. You should have bought a Sony Mavica. Or ANYTHING else, for that matter.”
“Ummm… thanks,” I blurted out, suddenly conscious of how stupid it must seem that I am in the backyard trying to take digital photographs of rakes. “I’ll know better next time.”
“No problem,” she responded, climbing back over the fence. “It’s a real shame, though. I could really use someone to snap some digipics of me for my new website.” She laid back on her towel and resumed soaking up the rays.
Damn you, Polaroid PDC640. Damn you to hell!
REASON #5 NOT TO PURCHASE THE POLAROID PDC640 DIGICAM: Opportunities lost.
ADDENDUM 3/23/02
After writing this review, I left the camera out. My son discovered it sitting on my desk, and has been carrying it around ever since, pretending to snap pictures and wholeheartedly believing it is a fine, fine plaything. So whatever deficiencies the Polaroid PDC640 possesses as a digital camera (and they are many), it does serve as an excellent children's toy.
ADDENDUM 1/23/04
This review was revived from dormancy per the request of aashok, who is a big fan of vivacious young ladies with jubbly mounds of mammoth, quivering breastmeat.
310,000-pixel sensor creates 640 x 480 images for posting on the Web Fixed-focus lens for simple point-and-shoot operation Included 8 MB CompactFlash ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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