My 1 1/2 year old Parker loves grabbing my phone and banging on it. On occasion she somehow manages to take pictures with it even though it is locked. So, when I was given the opportunity to review myFirst Camera 2, I knew who our test subject would be.
Out of the box, myFirst Camera 2 is brightly colored with a nice rubbery grip for small fingers. It comes with an impressive array of accessories, from a waterproof housing to a neck lanyard. It even comes with stickers to decorate the camera (we all know kids love stickers). It is lightweight but feels sturdy. The camera takes videos and pictures. It looks pretty fun to me, but I’ve had many a camera. How does it measure up as a first camera?
While younger than the target audience of 4+, Parker loved myFirst Camera 2. When I took it out of the box, she was immediately drawn to the bright colors and grabbed for it. Once I handed it to her, she wouldn’t give it back. The camera makes a fun sound when the picture button is pressed, which meant Parker had a blast pressing it over and over. In about 15 minutes, Parker managed to take 94 pictures. Was she trying to take pictures? Probably not because most of the pictures were of the floor or her hand. But she did manage to accidentally take some decent ones. She also somehow managed to take some video clips, which provided an opportunity for me to see how well the camera captures sound.
For a kids’ camera, the picture quality is pretty good. While the pictures she took look a little blurry because she was moving while taking them, I managed to distract Parker long enough to take some quick pictures of her with it (I also took some pictures of her holding it with my phone). Downloading the pictures to my computer was easy. The microSD card pops into the included USB converter, which was recognized by my Mac instantly.
myFirst Camera 2 is geared towards ages 4 and up, but it kept Parker’s interest and held up to her rough treatment. After watching her run around with it, I was genuinely excited to see what she captured. As she gets older, I can definitely see this camera as a great way to foster her creativity without having to hand her my phone to take pictures with. That alone makes MyFirst Camera 2 worth the price of admission.
Note: Thanks to myFirst by Oaxis for providing a MyFirst Camera 2 for review purposes.
