TyTN as camera (and MP3 player)

One of the plusses of theTyTN is that it can serve as a replacement digital camera and digital media player. After a month of use, my bottom line is this: it serves as an excellent always-there camera and MP3 player, but not truly as a replacement for a serious camera.

I tried getting through an outing with kids at an amusement park without my regular digital camera, a 4 mega-pixel camera from Nikon. Obviously the TyTN's camera is 2mp, but I find the quality of pictures taken outside during daylight to be very good. If you want pictures for digital use (e-mailing or sharing on-line) 2 megapixel will be fine for most people. The same is true of the TyTN's video clip capabilities.

But at night I found the TyTN's camera to be sub-standard. I basically couldn't take decent pictures at night, regardless of areas being lit up.

On a week-long business trip, I was able to use the TyTN well for on-the-spot pictures and video clips that I didn't expect to have to take, but liked taking with a camera that was already in my pocket.

So, bottom line:

a. if you want to print picture-quality blow-ups, you need more megapixels,
b. if you're going at night, you're going to want a real camera,

but for spontaneous and always-there use, and when you don't want to carry other devices, the camera has been very good.

While I'm writing, I find the TyTN very good as an MP3 player as well, although I'm not a heavy iPod user so I can't really compare the quality. With a 1gig card the TyTN can hold enough for me to listen to music and recorded lectures while driving 3 hours each day and flying overseas. But someone else will need to judge the quality, and of course you can't buy on iTunes.