Camcorder Reviews

I purchased the mc3 as a Christmas present for my 12 year old daughter. It didn't take her long to get the hang of taking pictures or video and she had a lot of fun doing so. Downloading them to our PC (uses Windows XP) was pretty easy. But I do have a few complaints so far. The first is that the mc3 is now shutting itself off even though it says the batteries are OK. A change of batteries may remedy this. The biggest complaint is that we cannot download mp3 files to the mc3. The users guide is really poor with regard to this. And the fact that it is on CD makes it hard to flip back & forth. Kodak's website says to look at the users guide (big help!) The guide says to use Real Jukebox(included) to download but Real Jukebox doesn't offer the mc3 as a storage device. Very frustrating!! Somebody more familiar with mp3's may know what to do but the mc3 is supposed to be a toy, not a job. My last complaint makes me wonder how much thought went into the design and did Kodak even try it out. You cannot close the flash card door - it causes the card to pop out of the connector!! 9/25/02 Just found out from a friend that you need to push the lever up to get it out of the way so you can close the door. He found out by accident. How hard would it have been for Kodak to let me know? BTW, anyone else notice how badly AMC has gone downhill lately?

I bought the MC3 because I wasn't quite ready to buy a real digital camcorder, and because I currently work overseas and didn't want to worry about power conversion, etc. Overall, I can't complain. As an MP3 player, it's solid. 64MB is a good amount of memory and the earphones are better than most (maybe it's just mine, but the wire for the left earphone is MUCH shorter than the one for the right. strange.).

As a camera, yes, the lack of a flash can be annoying, but if you want quality still-photos, you should NOT be considering this product. Even expensive camcorders take lousy photos. Outdoor, particularly long-range cityscapes/naturescapes, shoot pretty well. Anything up close, especially in low light, will come out blurry.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the video features of the MC3. There are two settings: high and low resolution. The high setting can capture very clear video, but results in HUGE files. Low-resolution picture quality is ok, but the files are still pretty big - not a very good trade-off. E-mailing videos of either size to friends (a big reason I wanted the MC3) can be a hassle.

There is sort of a contradiction when shooting video. Outdoor shots can come out great, but even a small amount of glare can make it hard to see exactly what you're shooting. Conversely, when indoors, the viewfinder might display a clear image, but the final video will usually appear much darker.

Software is included to add titles, effects, etc. to your video, but the program is awful. Adding even the most basic title screen, etc. can triple the file size. Functionality is minimal and online support (from the software manufacturer, not Kodak) is a joke. I haven't tried the program for still-photos.

The MC3 seems pretty durable, too. I dropped it on a concrete sidewalk from a height of about four feet with no problems, although the batteries did pop out.

Bottom-line: this is something you can have fun with, as long as you don't take it too seriously.

I have had this for over 2 years now and I still love it. The camera part is great fun, though low resolution is noticable in prints, prints look good. I upgraded to a 128 mb card which holds about 1.5 hours of music or 900 photos or 45 minutes of video. The best thing about this is it's TOUGH. I have dropped it numerous times, it has gone flying off of my desk. Sometimes the card pops out and the batteries always scatter, but it is always fine. It works just like the day I got it. Although there is one thing that I did not like. When Realplayer updated Jukebox, they did not upgrade the drivers for MC3. I eventually was not able to transfer files to the unit, so I bought a CF card reader. It works amazingly fast and lets me transfer my files through Windows Media Player. It now works like a charm, I would recommend this for anyone who uses Windows XP. If you can get a card reader, don't install the included software!