Digital Camera for a 3yr old

[goldenears]

I am wondering if anyone has any experience w/ buying a digital camera for a 3 year old?
My DD will be 3 at Christmas this year and I thought this would be a neat gift for her. I know Little Tikes makes one and Fisher Price. Anyone have any experience with either one of these or any other digital camera that would be good for a 3 yo?
TIA!

 

[Tricia819]

My DM bought my daughter the Little Tykes one last year for Christmas. She was 7 at the time, but my then 3 year old uses it too. We had looked at the Fisher Price one also, but decided on the other one because it has more features. Either one seems to be pretty durable and would be ok for a 3 y.o.

 

[Miss LD]

We have the Little Tykes camera.
It's okay.
DS (4) got it for Christmas last year. It's neat for him because he likes the idea of taking pictures, but they aren't the best pictures.
We didn't end up bringing it to WDW because it's big and we didn't want to lose it. We bought a disposable camera and I have to admit the pictures were way better.
I find the kids digitial camera pictures are really kind of grainy.
i mean, I know it's a kids' camera ...

 

[Princess Roo]

We're getting the Vtech one for DS for Christmas, based on reviews on-line. You can find lots of reviews of the various brands. It seemed to me that the Vtech and Fisher Price were the most popular.

 

[ChristusG]

We've tried out almost all of the "kids" camera.....V-Tech, Little Tikes, Polaroid Pixie....they all have horrible picture quality.

What we did is went on ebay or craigslist and found a cheap, pre-owned real digital camera. It was 3mp with a flash. Worked MUCH better than the "kids" cameras and was much cheaper too!

 

[KristinU]

DS has the V-tech one (Kidizooom) that we're really happy with. We went the route of the less-expensive "real" one first and DS broke it - just too many options and mechanical stuff for a 3-4 year old, IMHO...at least my rough and tumble guy who has to investigate every little mechanical thing...maybe a more gentle kid would do well with a "real" camera.

The V-tech has stood up to DS's abuse and has cool features like making a picture into a puzzle and allows you to put hats on people etc. The other thing we like about it is that it takes an SD card. The picture quality does stink, though...but at this point I'm certainly not scrapbooking with his shots, KWIM? I do wonder why they can't make these things higher MP - I can't imagine that it would add that much expense to them.

 

[momtomatthew]

We have the Fisher Price one and it works great. It has held up to NUMEROUS drops and beatings. My only complaint is that it eats batteries...

 

[Ducky4Disney]

Glad I found this thread. I'm looking into a camera for DS who will be 3 in Feb. My mom got hims a Disney Cars camera but it's way too complicated for him - he doesn't even know which way to hold it. I like the FP and V-Tech ones because they are rugged, have large, simple buttons, and the viewfinder is like a View Master - put it up to your head and use both eyes.

They only take pics in 640x480, like a cell phone, so the shots aren't going to be great. Having more MP would mean a larger sensor. Not sure if/how that would affect the camera.

I just want him to be able to take pics to his hearts content, see them immediately, and delete them as necessary. Later on we'll get him a disposable or a cheap "real" digital camera.

D4D

 

[Chelley00]

DS3 got the V-tech one for Christmas last year and he loves it. You can do fun things with the pictures like hats and frames, and there are a couple of games on it as well. It's been dropped (who am I kidding, it was thrown) down the stairs, probably more than once, and it's still going.


Just a word of warning about the V-tech one. If you don't have an SD card in it, and the battery dies, you lose all your pictures. We found that one out the hard way

 

[MNFootballMommy]

Santa brought DD3.5 the V-Tech one for Christmas last year and it is VERY popular! The picture quality is poor, but she doesn't care. She poses her toys, takes pictures of her favorite shows on TV, etc. She also loves the games (tic-tac-toe, memory and a picture puzzle). We have taken on the plane with us just for the games because I, like the PP, refuse to carry it around WDW because it is big and heavy (takes 4 AA batteries).

Yes, you should put a memory card in it, even if it is a small one. Also, if you use the SD card in it, you can use rechargable batteries vs. one time use batteries. Yeah, it's not recommended on the camera, but it is WAY cheaper to do it that way!

If you a looking for a camera for you kid to have fun with and not have to worry about breaking it, this is the one for you. If you are looking for a camera that takes great pictures, keep looking.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

My 3 year old loves, loves to take pictures. We may be terrible, but we don't print them. It would be a waste of paper, and he doesn't seem to care! Both of my older kids got real digital cameras, but not expensive ones, at age 7.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Yes!

We got DD one for her 3rd birthday and put a memory card in it. She loves it and has taken it to Disney World, the Dells, Mexico and other weekend long trips too! For her 4th birthday (In January) my husband and I will be printing out alot of her photos (she took a lot of good ones!!) and even some of the crazier ones and putting them in an album. We want it to be her 3rd year of life in pictures She take photos of everything that makes her laugh and some of the photos make us laugh

On easter, the bunny left a trail of eggs to her basket and she took a picture of EACH AND EVERY egg that led to her basket! hahaha!!

Our 2 yr old DS loves to use it too, his pictures are not perfect, but he likes to browse the photos and point out the people he knows!

ETA:
she has the Fisher Price one in pink! It truly is all they say it is! Very sturdy and believe me it's been tossed around ALOT! Between an 11 month old, 2 and 3 year old, it's gotten it's fair share of use!!

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

We have the Crayola one and the Mickey one - recently on clearance from the Disney Store. Both have had a lot of love from a 3 yr old and her under-2 sister and work fine. The Crayola takes very low res images, but they don't care. Half of the shots they take are deleted by them when they play around. The battery went on the Crayola one pretty quickly. Each of those comes with some fun software to play with your images.

 

[goldenears]

Thanks to everyone for all of your replies! I had found the Little Tikes one at BJ's for 29.99, but the reviews online aren't as great as the VTech and Fisher Price, so I may be returning it to get one of those. Sounds like the picture quality is pretty horrible on all of them, but I just want her to have a camera that she can use, drop and have fun with. Thanks again everyone!

 

[lilybrooke14]

DD has this one

http://disneyshopping.go.com/webapp...&productId=1219177&langId=-1&categoryId=14308

I picked it up at Walmart. The picture quality isn't great, but she doesn't care. She's only 2.5 and she's perfectly capable of taking pictures with it. Granted, they're mostly of feet, but she's actually pulled off a couple of cute ones too. You can add Disney characters into the shot, and it comes with Disney editing software that's kind of fun to play with. It's taken a few hits, and it still works fine. There's a Disney Princess one toysrus.com and I've also seen a Tigger and Pooh version.

 

[alison91501]

I have been doing similar research for my 3 year old. Everyone I talk to says buy a cheap "adult" digital camera so I think that is what we are going to do.

 

[imthatgirl]

i think it depends on what you want from the camera. if you are looking for just a toy and dont really plan to print the pictures, any will do.
if you plan to print the pictures, i would stick with a cheaper real camera. the toy cameras are just that, toys. you spend money on prints of oictures youll just want to throw away.
i would probably buy something like this
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6528325

or
http://www.target.com/Argus-Digital...UTF8&index=target&rh=k:digital cameras&page=1

 

[bumbershoot]

We have the v-tech. We have about 7 SD cards b/c they are so cheap (at buy.com you can sometimes get them for free, when they are offered for $10 with free shipping, along with a "$10 off using google checkout" offer). DS loves the games and fun things you can do.

 

[disneymarie]

We're getting the Vtech one for DS for Christmas, based on reviews on-line. You can find lots of reviews of the various brands. It seemed to me that the Vtech and Fisher Price were the most popular.

There was a Mickey Disney camera I almost bought, but it did not have removable storage.
I went with the VTech for my 3 yr old grandson and he loves it.It has tons of options, even putting pirate hats on top of heads. The camera holds TONS of picts and takes a SD card. IT can upload to the computer, or view on TV. My grandson had no trouble figuring it out unlike grandma.

It has two handles for hands, and two eye view finder. It is heavy, but takes falls, bangs drops and seems indestructable.

I took pictures in the Toys' R US with both the Fisher price and VTech, and was much happier with the quality. It will print a 4X6 or digital print to SAMS online, but most of the fun seems to upload to the TV for viewing.
Our little guy has some really great looking pics, I love what he wants to take pics of, like his feet, clouds, everyone has to pose, the cats, flowers.

Good luck,
Dianne

 

[rainydayplay]

I had contemplated getting my DD4 a digital camera for her birthday this year, but, due to issues with picture quality, decided to buy her a 35mm camera instead. Quite appropriately, it is a Disney Princess camera! I also have an old digital camera that I think I will let her take over -- it just needs batteries and a memory card.