For some time now I have been looking for a cheap and simple digital camera for my 8 and 10 year old children, the digital equivalent to an old 110 Instamatic, something that will take reasonable snapshots, but which will allow pictures to be previewed immediately rather than having to wait until returning home from a 2 week holiday.

The trouble with digital cameras however is that you can never buy last year's models at reduced prices, instead you are forced to go for more Megapixels than an 8 year old child would ever appreciate for the same circa £80 entry level price tag. I spent a lot of time scouring Ebay for what I was after and came close on a few occasions with old models sold from Hong Kong, however by the time you’d added on P&P the deal wasn’t much better than this year's models bought in
the UK.

I was therefore chuffed to bits to find a well-known company advertising in your pages warehouse surplus stock Konica KD-220Z, a 2Megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom for under £30, just what I was after! I excitedly placed my order for two of the cameras and started dreaming up a photo competition to keep the children occupied over the summer.

I was pleased to find the camera came with all the leads, CD, handbook and even batteries, I hurriedly unpacked the first camera and installed the supplied batteries only to find that there was no life in the camera at all. I then noticed a sticker with red underlined text plastered across the cover of the handbook declaring that lithium batteries were strongly recommended, then a further slip of paper fell from the handbook advising that CRV3 batteries are recommended, a theme was beginning to develop, clearly battery life was going to be an issue with this camera.

No matter, I happened to have a pack of new Duracell Alkaline batteries, which I installed and the camera sprang into life, for the moment anyway. Everything went fine at first but 2 hours and twenty pictures later I had two really frustrated children on my hands, not only had the batteries been drained but the cameras had frozen with lens protruding and not responding to any button (including the power down button).

I know this is not a problem common to all cameras of this type and vintage having had many years of satisfied use out of a Cannon A40 which has all the same features, and uses the same number and type of batteries and yet is able to deliver well over 150 pictures on a set of standard batteries. I’m now left wondering how many lithium batteries I can afford on the money saved by going for last year's surplus stock rather than this years current model.
David Bradbrook