Size Does Matter

For the past several months I've been searching for a digital camera that is: inexpensive; small; uses standard AA rechargeable batteries; has an optical zoom lens; has an optical viewfinder; and has an LCD display.

Well, five out of six isn't bad. With the exception of the optical viewfinder, the Konica Minolta Dimage X31 fits the bill.

I've been using this shirt pocket-sized 3.2 megapixel camera for the past several weeks and I can say that I'm impressed. To begin with, it's affordable, selling on the web for under $140 (for prices go to pricegrabber.com or froogle.com and enter Dimage X31).

Another immediate plus: the size. Because I review cameras, I often have several loaner units sitting around and I've noticed that when it's time to leave the house, I typically grab one that's small. This model isn't the smallest on the market, but at 3.4 x 2.6 x 1.0 inches, it's pretty close and certainly small enough to slip into a shirt pocket. At just over 4 ounces, it's also very light.

The camera has a 3x optical zoom lens but you would never know it by looking. That's because Konica Minolta has developed a lens that uses mirrors inside the camera to accomplish the same thing as a zoom lens that protrudes out.

When considering a zoom lens, only pay attention to the optical zoom. Like all digital cameras, it also has a digital zoom (12x) but that's simply a software trick that manipulates the image at the expense of quality. For optical zooms, 3x optical is pretty much standard on consumer level cameras. If you want to blow up the image, you can always do it later with your photo editing software.

The camera uses an SD (Secure Digital) card to store images. It comes with a 16 megabyte card but that's only enough to take a few pictures. I highly recommend that you purchase at least a 256-megabyte card (under $40) or you can get a 512-megabyte card for just over $50.

The SD card is inserted into the side, over the camera, and ejected by pushing on it. Unfortunately, there is no cover to protect it from popping out if you push on it. It's been fine most of the time but once, when it was in my pants pocket, it must have been pushed and wound up coming out.

While we're on the subject of what could be better, I have to say that I'm disappointed that the camera doesn't have an optical viewfinder. It does, of course, have an LCD display that you can use to compose the picture. That works OK most of the time but in bright sunlight, the display can be hard to see.

I prefer peering through an old-fashioned style viewfinder though I have noticed that a lot of people who use digital cameras seem to prefer the LCD even if their camera has a viewfinder. The LCD display is only 1.5 inches, which is a bit small but adequate.

Back to the good stuff. I love the fact that the camera uses AA batteries. Most digital cameras these days use proprietary rechargeable batteries, which are OK so long as you have the charger with you. But I was once caught out of town without a charger and my camera was useless.

You can always find AA batteries, although I don't recommend using the throwaway kind, except in an emergency. This camera can take nearly 100 pictures on rechargeable nickel metal hydride (NIMH) batteries. These batteries are relatively cheap so I sometimes just carry a bunch of them when I travel or carry a small battery charger.

The camera takes short videos, limited only by available memory. You can record sound that you'll hear when you play the video on your PC but you won't hear it if you play back the video on the camera's LCD screen.

The image quality is also good. Sure, you can easily find cameras on the market with resolutions higher than 3.2 megapixels. But here's a secret to remember about very high resolution: it doesn't matter unless you are planning to print very large (larger than 8.5" by 11") photos or do a lot of cropping. If you keep your prints to 8.5" by 11" or smaller, you will probably never see any advantage to having more than 3 megapixels.

Like all digital cameras, there is a menu that you can use to configure the settings. This camera has a relatively unique system with a little joystick-like controller that lets you scroll through the menus. It will take you a few minutes to figure out all the options, but it's fairly straightforward.

If you want to take a picture with yourself in it, you have to go though a menu to turn on the self-timer. I like it better when there's a dedicated button for that, but there are only so many buttons they can put on a small camera.

One clever little innovation is that they put a tiny mirror on the front of the camera so you can take a self portrait by holding it in your hand, pointing it at yourself (and whoever you are with) and checking to be sure that your reflection is in the center of the mirror.

Another nice feature of this camera is that it starts up very quickly. Turn on the camera and you're ready to shoot in less than 2 seconds. There is also a pretty short lag time between shots as long as you have fresh batteries. That's important and not always the case with digital cameras.

Overall, this is a fine camera for its price and size.

By Larry Magid