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The Package The Take-it S1 digital camera came in a nice black box. Other than the camera the package included a USB cable, video cable, a wrist strap, carrying pouch, two AA alkaline batteries, a Quick Start Guide and a software CD that included the camera drive. The camera also comes with a one-year warranty. 
The Features Weighing around 100 grams (without batteries) and measuring 4.1" x 2.3" x 1.3" this ?U? shaped camera can fit into your pocket with easy. The Take-it S1 has a 2.1 MP CMOS sensor and features a 4x digital zoom. The camera comes with 8 MB of internal memory and has support for SD memory cards. On the front of the camera is your lens, flash, viewfinder, microphone and self-timer indicator, while the speaker is on the curved side. The lens has a focal length of 35 mm equivalent. The lens aperture is set at f / 2.8 with a focal range of 3.2 ft (1m) to infinity. The batteries go on the opposite side along with the SD memory card slot. The panel on the top has the power and the shutter/OK buttons with the playback, photo and movie/audio mode switch in the center. The 1.5 LCD screen is at the back along with the display (DISP), delete and menu buttons. At the top left corner of the LCD is the power LED. Also present is a multifunction four-way button for Up/Zoom in, Down/Zoom out/Nine image display, Right/Flash, and Left. The flash button lets you select between the five flash modes (Auto, Auto with red-eye reduction, Forced Flash, Forced Flash with Red-Eye Reduction, and OFF). The USB and AV-output connectors are at the bottom. The camera captures images in resolutions of 2048 x 1536 pixels (interpolated), 1600 x 1200 pixels, 1240 x 960 pixels and 640 x 320 pixels, which are stored in the JPEG format. It also offers three quality settings namely best, fine and normal. Apart from the quality settings the camera allows you to select the level of sharpness (low, normal, high), exposure compensation (Auto/-2 EV to +2EV in 1-step increments) and white balance (auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent). Movie clips are captured at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels at 15 frames per second (fps). The clips are recorded in the AVI format. The camera also lets you record your voice as WAV files. Both the length of the movie clips and the audio files are only restricted to the size of the memory available. Performance So far, as 2 MP cameras go, the Kodak CX6200 rules the nest. And since we are talking about 2 MP cameras, one has to compare the Microtek Take-it S1 with the CX6200. In terms of picture quality, the Take-it S1 delivers average image quality in the 2048 x 1536 pixels (interpolated) resolution, but the finer details of the images are blurred as can be seen in this sample image. Also as one zooms in, the image quality decreases with a lot of artifacts. Another negative factor is that the image background is unclear. In poor light conditions or at night only those objects within a range of 5 ft are illuminated and appear clear. In the lower resolutions the images are grainy with artifacts. The images are darker than the actual objects and even the colours are dull. The movie clips on the other hand are much better, but here the sound recording is not up to the mark. The microphone is powerful enough, but picks up a lot of disturbances, while the inbuilt speaker is weak. As compared with the CX6200 the Take-it S1 is forced to take the second place. But this is not to say that it?s the worst. We have seen a number of 2.0 MP cameras, which lag far behind in terms of picture quality. A big drawback with this camera, however, is the slow interface. Moving between tasks in the menu takes time, especially in the playback mode. The five-second delay that exists between clicking the shutter and the image being captured is just too long. Conclusion It?s clear that the Take-it S1 is an outdoors camera, and is ideal for journalists and the like who need to take quick images, where quality is not a high priority. At a street price of around under Rs. 7,500, the camera seems to be a good deal. But with the Kodak CX6200 available for Rs. 8,000, the going will be tough for this camera unless Microtek make use of the price factor well. Test Unit Sourced From: Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai
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