Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless

January 5, 2003

A digital camera that transmits its photos wirelessly to your computer? Yes. And more. And, at a great price too. The Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless (Concord, $149.99, non-wireless version EyeQ Go 2000, $79.99) is a two-megapixel Bluetooth enabled digital camera, and the first of its kind. Using the Bluetooth wireless technology, the camera can transmit photos to your computer or to any Bluetooth enabled device, such as a cell phone or PDA, as long as it’s located within a 30 foot radius. No wires to connect, no memory cards to swap, and we found it a breeze to use.

The camera fits easily in your hand or pocket (3.4 inches long) and is light weight (4.5 ounces including battery). Included with the camera is a three volt lithium battery good for about 120 pictures, padded pouch (with belt loop), carrying strap, Bluetooth USB adapter for your computer, USB and TV cables, printed user manual and the ArcSoft PhotoImpression photo editing program and the ArcSoft VideoImpression video capture program.

Still pictures can be taken at three different resolutions: two megapixel, one megapixel or VGA, and three different quality (compression) settings: fine (5:1), normal (12:1) and economy (24:1). Your choice depends on intended use of the pictures and on any file size restraints. High resolution and fine quality can be used for the best prints, including enlargements up to 5 x 7 inch, but the downside is a larger file size and longer Bluetooth transmission times. VGA resolution and economy compression is best used for transmission to and viewing on PDAs or cell phones. The intermediate resolution and quality is good for Web use.

The camera contains 7MB of internal memory, which stores 8 to 110 jpeg images, depending on the resolution and quality settings. If you need to have the camera store more pictures, there’s a memory card slot for MCC/SD memory cards. The all-glass lens has three manual fixed focus settings for Macro, Portrait and Distance ranges. There is no optical zoom--only a 4X digital zoom. Be aware, though, the digital zoom uses fewer of the sensor pixels, so the picture resolution and therefore the quality suffer. The 1.6-inch LCD screen is used to preview your shoots, review your pictures or video clips and for menu selections. A 4X viewing zoom helps to check details of your photo.

The camera has auto exposure and auto white balance, although these can be overridden with manual menu settings for EV compensation -2.0 to +2.0 and color balance for sun, tungsten or fluorescent lighting. The auto flash can also be overridden with off and fill-flash manual settings. A helpful feature is the Preset Scene settings. These optimize the camera for shooting specific scenes such as Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Night Landscape, Sunset and Fireworks. The camera can capture AVI video sequences without sound. Up to 40 seconds of video can be stored in the internal memory, but longer sequences require a memory card. A ten-second self-timer is included if you want to get into the picture.

Photo transfer to the computer can be done by using the camera’s built-in wireless Bluetooth system or by direct USB cable connection. Bluetooth is a wireless communication standard designed to be used for distances of up to 30 feet. Bluetooth has found use in many home and small offices where running cables or continually plugging and unplugging cables is inconvenient or impossible. Computers, printers, PDAs and other Bluetooth enabled devices can communicate wirelessly with each other to share files and more. Using the included Bluetooth USB adapter connected to your PC, picture transfer times can vary from 6 to 145 seconds per picture, depending on resolution and quality. The camera can’t be set to transfer a group of pictures, so you can only transfer one picture at a time.

Connecting the camera to your computer via the included USB cable provides speedier transfer for your picture files and also allows the camera to be used as a Web camera for video conferencing. The camera has a video output used to display pictures or video clips directly on your TV or to record them on your VCR. There is no slide show feature, but you can manually scroll through the pictures for a slide show-type effect.

The included photo editing program, ArcSoft PhotoImpressions, is a photo editor that’s easy to use and allows you to organize your photos into albums and make common adjustments to your photos for brightness, color, red-eye and size. Some fun effects are included, and you can print photos or send them attached to an e-mail.

The Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless digital camera is a compact, easy-to-use camera producing satisfactory pictures at snapshot size. Color saturation is good, but sharpness suffers a bit from the fixed focus system. There is also some barely noticeable color banding and noise from the CMOS sensor used in the camera. Despite some caveats, however, features such as the Bluetooth wireless picture transmission and ease of use make this camera a good value.

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