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As a digital camera, the MC3 is a disappointment. It is mainly designed to capture only bright and sunny outdoor photos -- don’t even think about taking it inside. Regular lighting conditions produce hazy, greenish pictures with faint lines everywhere. A flash would’ve helped, but there isn’t one, so night photos are out of the question.

Indoor & Outdoor Samples

The focus is also another down point. Close up pictures tend to be blurry. There is no auto focus feature included. The MC3 is a fixed focus camera, meaning that there is no ability to adjust the focus on subjects. Literally, walking back and forth is the only way to insure non-blurry photos.

One of the worst aspects though, is the LCD viewfinder. It’s designed for usage in brightly lit areas. Unlike most cameras, the LCD viewfinder is not backlit. Looking through it indoors produces only shadows. You can barely see what your photos will be like when taking pictures indoors. Insuring good pictures is very much a guessing game. As well, a lens cap is not included, so look forward to a scratchy camera lens.

Most of the MC3’s problems, however, are alleviated if you plan to only use the unit on a bright and sunny day. The viewfinder and photos are okay outside. I wouldn’t suggest printing MC3’s photos, though. But, e-mailing them to friends or putting them on an online journal would be fine. Also, scrolling through photos on the unit picture is really easy.

As a digital video recorder, the MC3 is poor, again. The unit is not made for quality recording. Capturing trivial events would be fine, as the resolution reaches only 320x240 pixels. As with the digital camera section, lighting is truly key. Regular home lighting conditions produce poor videos, filled with hazy, green fuzz. Recordings most definitely need to take place on a bright, sunny day. The audio recording quality is also very poor. Light whizzing sounds are apparent during playback. Action shots are also poor and tend to be choppy.

To round things out, the MC3’s design is unattractive. It is very plain, having a mundane black case with blue accents. Other MP3 players seem much more attractive. The MC3’s box and packaging were more pleasing than the unit. From a functional perspective, the MC3’s design was also impractical. It’s meant to be held in one hand. Obviously, holding it steady while taking pictures is somewhat of a challenge. Also, the MC3 is a power hog. Since it does not have a regular viewfinder in place of its LCD viewfinder, it consumes a lot of batteries. My batteries were dead after an afternoon with the unit. In addition, the MC3 does not take well to rechargeable batteries. It doesn’t even seem to recognize fully charged rechargeable alkaline ones, either.

In conclusion, this unit performs well as an MP3 player. Sound quality is clean and sharp. However, it performs very poorly as a digital camera and video recorder. Image quality, focus, and the viewfinder are all very terrible, unless lighting conditions are very good. In general, it seems that it may be more suited for someone looking for an MP3 player and enjoy the additional features of a low quality digital camera and video recorder, on the side. But, at about $400 Cdn, it is rather pricey. An all-in-one unit is a great idea, but I’d suggest waiting for the next release.

Overall Score: 45%