Technology: radios and kiddie cameras

[christineka]

Dh wants to buy a kiddie digital camera for the kids to take their own pictures. He'll bring his laptop, so we can upload nightly. He looked at the cameras enough to see that some have terrible resolution, some are okay, and some are great. We have lost the time to order anything, so if we buy it's from in store. (Walmart or target) Has anyone brought one of these cameras? Was it used? Is it a good idea? Any recommendations?

We were also thinking of splitting up a bit at the park. I hear everyon uses cell phoes these days, but we are still in the olden days. DH has a work cell phone (that work pays), but we never intend to ever buy one for our household's use. We are considering buying some walkie talkie type radios. Any recommendations for those? (Again, have to be bought in store and we have the range of electronic's stores.)

 

[jennifur25]

My twins got Fisher Price Kid Tough cameras for Christmas and I am planning on letting them take them when we go in February. Unfortunately, I haven't put batteries in them yet so I don't know about picture quality yet. Hopefully someone else has some insight! Even if it's not the best, it will be fun for them and we got them on clearance for like $8!

 

[evandmp]

We got dd a kid tough camera and ds the vtech one and they both fight over the vtech one. The vtech one takes better quality picture and has an option that you can add frames or clipart type things to your picture. I've even posted some pics on my facebook off of that camera. Most people just say to buy a cheap higher quality camera but my kids like the look of the kid ones and my daughter has dropped her camera already more than a handful of times on concrete and at the mall and it still works great. Our Sony that we used to let them play with no longer works.

 

[kylieh]

How old are your kids? It may be worth getting them a normal camera with simple functions.

DD7 got a Fuji Waterproof camera from us at Christmas time. She asked for a camera, and when we started looking we found it to be best value for what we got, with basic functionality.

 

[geekypeach]

You could always buy pre-paid cell phones. The phones with minutes are going to be cheaper than buying radios with enough range to suit your purposes. Also keep in mind that CM's use radios at DL and I might worry that you would have interferance.

As for the cameras, I would not buy a kiddy one. Even a cheap regular digi is going to be far superior. Go to Target or Walmart and play with their displays and see what you like. I made the mistake of buying a kiddy one and I was sick that I threw my money away on it. The biggest problem is the loooooooooong time it takes to record the image. A lot of cheapies require the shooter to 'hold still.' Fat chance in this house!!

 

[DanT]

You see Motorola hand held radios all the time at DL.
The nice thing about them is you can have any number of them on the same channel, so when you speak to one, you speak to all.

I have several of them....a couple of original ones that only take AA batteries with about 1-2 mile range, and I have a couple of new ones with 35 mile range with rechargable battery packs...
We use ours in lots of different ways, but using them at DL is one of the best since you don't have to use minutes, worry about signal strength within the parks.
The new ones work pretty well every where. And the kids love them.
You can get two of them with all the attachments at Costco for under $60. Doubt you can buy throw away phones for that....and the radios don't cost you after you buy them, other than recharging.

 

[brergnat]

The kiddie digital cameras stink, IMO. Just get them a disposable point and shoot. Or, like another poster mentioned, a cheap REGULAR digital camera.

My kids use their FP camera as a 'toy', literally. They have never taken it anywhere because it is just too darn big, heavy, and awkward.

 

[christineka]

We have an old digital camera- A fuji something or other that was once fancy. My older kids are great taking pictures with it and I suggested just letting the kids have it, but the kids are kids and will drop the camera. Dh wants a camera that we can hand over to the kids and allow them to hold onto and snap whenever they are inclined- not something an adult would have to hand over every time the kid wants to take a picture. Not sure about a kid holding onto a camera, though. Maybe we should just hand over the camera when the kids want to take pictures. I searched reviews and so far haven't come up with a kiddie camera that has unblemished reviews.

I will check into those motorola radios.

 

[CrazyDuck]

Yea... I say buy yourself a new camera and give the kids your old one. Or... go to best buy and buy some of those cheap insignia cameras for like $70. I did see a 2.1mp crayola kid camera at costco I almost bought. Not sure the price on that though.

 

[carebee21]

You don't mention the ages of your children, but I would skip the kiddie camera. I've only had experience with the Fisher Price Kid Tough one, but it's junk. The pictures suck, the camera is big and bulky and I couldn't imagine having to lug around two of those in my backpack/purse/diaperbag, in addition to whatever else you have, the camera only holds about 70 pics but with as many exciting things in Disney, that won't last long and lastly the camera guzzles batteries and you'll go through them like crazy. Then once the batteries die you need a screwdriver to open up the camera and change the batteries. Not very convenient for travelling.

We gave up on the kids camera about a year ago and just gave our then 5 year old our old digital camera to use. I just kept it in my pocket and pulled it out whenever the need arose for him to take pics. I would recommend doing this or buying a cheap digital camera.

Another option, if the picture thing is only for Disneyland and not a regular hobby or something they're normally interested in, you can always buy a disposable camera or two for each child and tell them it takes x amount of pics and once they're gone, they're gone so pick your pictures carefully.

 

[christineka]

Thank you! I don't want to waste $50 on junk. I'm not sure the kids really want to take pictures anyway. Dh thought it would be fun. The kids are aged almost 3 (though no interest in taking pictures- he can't see far anyway), 5, 7, 8, and 10. The older ones are fine snapping pictures with our nice camera. The 5 year old is teeny tiny and can't hold our big cameras. I don't think she cares about taking pictures though. I gave my oldest two disposable cameras for summer camp and they did fine taking pictures on those. I think just one disposable camera would be enough for those kids to share if they really want to take their own pictures and have their own camera. I'll discuss with dh.

 

[FergusBC]

We bought my 8 year old a second hand digital camera off of craig's list for about $30. There's lots of good deals as people upgrade and just want to get rid of their older, lower resolution cameras. Hers is about 4mp..??? Perfect for snapshots. So far she's taken it to school and to birthday parties and it's survived intact. Don't know if she'll want to take it to DL but it's small enough that she can tuck it in my knapsack if she wants.

ETA: Woohoo! Just realized that we're officially less than 3 months away from our trip. Thank goodness for tickers

 

[geekypeach]

Have you considered a neck strap then? At those ages, they are highly capable of handling a camera that isn't your primary. By using a neck strap, you minimize droppage by a lot.

 

[TiggerMomNine]

I agree with several others - an inexpensive regular digital camera is the way to go - even for a 5 year old! We had the Fisher Price one for our then 4 year old, but he hated it - it didn't ZOOM. We ended up letting him use our camera.

I also recommend neck lanyards for all cameras, Nindendo Gameboys, Nintendo DS's, walkie talkies, PSP's, etc! It is mandatory in our family - as soon as they pick up the electronic device, they must put on the lanyard. We've used them in Disney World, Disneyland, Paris, London, everywhere! We even use them on the adult's cameras.

 

[MG3G]

I also agree the FP camera is awful.
We bought our 6 year old the discovery kids dig. Cam Corder at walmart. (Canada though) It needs a memory disk to work but takes really good pictures/movies and was aroun $70.

 

[jenpace]

I see a lot of people using walkie talkies but if you wanted to get cheap cell phones without a contract, I've seen them at Best Buy for around $25 each and they come pre-loaded with minutes.

The nice thing about cell phones is that even if they have no minutes and are not on any active account, you can still dial 911 in an emergency for free so it might be nice to keep one in your car just in case....could be a good thing long after your trip.