D-Link advertises this product as a 3-in-1 product. It has basic digital camera capabilities, webcam capabilities and, a little extra on the side, a very little taste of digital video camera capabilities. With a price tag of only $129 USD, the DSC-350 is supposed to take the role of all 3 of these devices.

	DSC-350
System Requirements	Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000 Pentium 200 or Equivalent and Above 16 MB RAM 30 MB Hard Drive Space CD-ROM Drive Video Adapter that supports 24-bit (16.7 million colors) or greater color USB Port
Standards	USB Specification version 1.1
Connector	One upstream (USB Type A)
Sensor	CMOS Light Sensor with 350K Pixel (1024x768 using pixel enhancing technology, 640x480, 320x240 pixels) Resolution
Performance	WebCam: 30 fps @ VGA (640x480), 32 fps @ QVGA (320x240) Video Recording: 4 fps @ QVGA (320x240), 20 fps @ (160x120)
Lens	340 degree manual adjustable (f-7.1mm; equal to a 46.7mm lens on a 35mm camera)
Shutter Speed	1/4"~1/2000"
Focus Length	4 cm ~ infinity
Aperture	2.2/5.6 Automatic
Power Consumption	Max 1w
Weight (without battery)	110g
Dimension	96mm(W) x 58mm(h) x 31mm(D)

A quick look at the specs shows that this isn't exactly the most feature-filled digital camera available. With a maximum resolution of 1024x768 at 24-bit, this camera has the capability of taking pictures at very high resolutions and with 8MB of memory inside, which is a lot when compared to a lot of the other, more expensive digital cameras such as the oh, so popular Kodak DC215, which only includes 4MB of storage, this camera has plenty of storage for pictures… but that's about all that this camera has to shine with in the digital camera portion of it. It doesn't have a color LCD screen so you can preview your pictures, it doesn't have any way of adding more memory such as a Compact Flash slot and, here's the part that really puts this product behind its competition, it doesn't have a flash! I wouldn't suspect that adding a feature as simple as a flash to this camera would've boosted the cost of this camera much, so I really don't understand the reasoning behind D-Link's decision in leaving this important feature out. I understand that this camera is supposed to be a "low-end" digital camera, but any camera these days should have a built-in flash or at least some way of adding a flash to it-the DSC-350 has neither.

On the video side, the DSC-350 is capable of up to 30 frames per second at 640x480 in real-time and can act as a webcam. This resolution and frame speed capability is the highest that I've ever seen on a webcam so it'll be interesting to see if it's capable of producing as much as it claims on paper. A very neat feature, which counts as the third feature in the "3-in-1" part of the product slogan, is the video recording. The DSC-350 can record up to 4.5 mins of video in its 8MB of memory at either a resolution of 320x240 @ 4 frames per second or at 160x120 @ 20 frames per second. This video can then be transferred to the computer and saved as AVI files. Although 4.5 mins may not seem like a lot, this could be handy when all you want to do is record short video clips on the go.

The camera connects to a PC or Macintosh through the USB interface, which is nice since USB devices are usually very easy to install and can be plugged in and out without a reboot of the computer.

First Impressions
The DSC-350 came in a plastic casing with no box, something that I've rarely seen computer components packaged in. Inside the package was the camera itself, a cradle to hold the camera in place when using it as a webcam, a user's guide, a quick-start guide, a copy of MGI's PhotoSuite III SE and VideoWave III SE, 2 x AAA batteries and some minor accessories such as a pouch to keep the camera in and a hand strap.

The first thing that I must comment on is that D-Link did a nice job in satisfying the software package. PhotoSuite III SE, a light version of MGI's PhotoSuite III line of graphics/photography software is an excellent tool for beginners to the world of digital photography that allows users to easily work with their photos. VideoWave III SE, a trimmed-down version of the $100 USD VideoWave III video editing and capturing software, is great for doing some minor editing on the videos that you create and can be used as a tool for capturing video directly from the DSC-350.

Also included in the package were both a User's Guide and a thinner Quick-Start Guide. Unfortunately, both of them were done poorly. Yes, they did explain everything that was needed to install the product and the language was easy to understand, but information was scattered all over the place and was hard to locate. For example, information on how to transfer photos from the camera to the computer is found in the User's Guide, but information on how to capture video is found in the Quick-Start Guide. Also lacking is a FAQ section that I like to see manufacturers include just in case something goes wrong during the installation process.

The camera itself was very small. It can easily fit into my shirt or pant pocket and can be taken anywhere I go. On the bottom is a hole to screw in the included cradle or to screw the camera onto any standard tripod. A rotating dial on the front of the camera allows you to manually put the camera into focus and a small LCD screen (not color, just a plain LCD screen) allows you to view how many pictures are remaining, the level of light that the camera is aiming at and which settings the camera is in.

Speaking of settings, there are a whole ton of settings that you can set this camera to:

• Single snap shot
• Continuous snap shots (4 images in 4 seconds)
• Self-timer (10 seconds)
• Video recording (4.5 mins of low-resolution video)

One gripe that I found with the camera, physically, is that there's no way to cover the lens. It does not come with a built-in lens cap or even a removable one, so there's no way of protecting the lens when the camera's not in use, unless you stuff it in the very tacky-looking pouch (which, in fact, looks like a hallowed-out shoulder pad). Personally, I wouldn't carry around this camera in the pouch that's included just because of how bad it looks.

On to: Powering Up...