Mattel’s Vidster Digital Video Camera Impressions

Vidster is a digital video camera marketed toward kids who have bigger dreams than to end up making the next Blair Witch sequel.  Incredibly easy to use, it’s ready to go right out of the box. Upon inspection, it looks cheapish and plastic, however keep in mind that it retails for $79.99 and it is intended to withstand the punishment of kids.  It comes with 32MB of onboard memory but it is expandable up to 512MB using an SD slot.  At only 15 fps, the video quality seemed disappointing and sometimes sluggish.  Forgetting that it’s intended for kids, I tried to play around with it but found it difficult to manipulate the buttons with my huge sausage fingers. The camera takes 1.3 megapixel still shots and has a 1.1-inch color LCD with 2x digital zoom. The product seems to thrive once it’s connected to a PC over its USB connection.  The editing software used is a version of autoProducer 3.5 designed specifically by muvee Technologies for Vidster.  The software is simple enough for kids to use by integrating music into their scenes, emailing their creations, or even burning them to DVD.