Point, Shoot, and Pray

Robert Luhn

Compact digital cameras save space but often sacrifice fundamental features. Consider Toshiba America's 2-megapixel PDR-T10. For under $300, you get lots of fancy features, including white-balance controls and multiple flash modes. Unfortunately, such basic operations as focusing, framing, and snapping a shot can be problematic.

Still, it's hard not to like this Klondike bar-sized camera, which can tuck neatly into just about any pocket.

You run the PDR-T10 mainly by tapping icons arranged in logical, linear fashion on its tiny LCD screen--it's the first camera we've seen with this feature, which proved surprisingly easy to use. But you also must use the LCD's 1-by-1.25-inch active area to frame shots because there's no viewfinder, which is not ideal. The PDR-T10 does store images on a Secure Digital memory card, however, at resolutions of 800 by 600 and 1600 by 1200, and it sports built-in flash plus the usual automatic focus and exposure modes you'd expect.

Buying Information

Toshiba PDR-T10 2.5 stars (09/01/2002) Tiny camera is innovative, but taking pictures is challenging. List: $299