Kodak EasyShare 613 digital camera

My eight-year old daughter begged for a digital camera for her birthday. We certainly weren’t going to go out and buy her a $800 SLR, but I did want her to have a “real” camera she could call her own. This meant a camera simple enough for her to use without daddy moving all the buttons, and one geared for her age group, rather than the PlaySchool variety. Despite my prejudices toward Kodak, which I think of as a “film” company, we found a good solution in the Kodak EasyShare C613 6.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

The EasyShare is a sturdy little camera, small enough to be compact, but big enough to not get lost. It takes passable photos at 6.2 Megapixels and has an easy to use zoom. It also has a video feature, but be aware that there is no speaker. Since the video played back without sound, we thought it was a no-sound version, which rendered it completely uninteresting to a child. While you can’t listen to the video playback on the camera, the videos play with sound on other devices.

We found this camara on-sale at Walgreens for $89, but I’ve seen them on Amazon for $83. Don’t be confused by the more expensive c633. It’s actually a little bit less camera, but it docks directly into Kodak’s EasyShare printer.