With all of Peter‘s talk about his digital cameras, I figured I’d throw my own hat into the ring.
A few weeks ago, I purchased a Traveler 6.31 Megapixel Digital Camera, from, of all places, Aldi. As mentioned in the comments, the camera appears to be a rebranded Vivitar Vivicam 4000.
Thus far, the camera has worked wonderfully. To start with, it came loaded with accessories – 2 Lithium Ion batteries and charger, a car adapter for charging on the go, a small carrying case with belt loop and plenty of cables for connecting your camera. The 128MB SD card was a bit small, but I have others (more on those another time).
The quality of the pictures has been solid, but I must admit that I haven’t used it nearly as much as I should have. I’ll try and put it through some paces one of these days.
As I understand it, this camera went for $269 over the Christmas holidays, and even at that price it would seem to be a pretty good deal. When I bought mine, they were apparently clearing them out, because it cost only $169, making it seem like a complete steal. I’m very happy with it thus far, but I’ll keep you posted on that if it changes.
Update May 26, 2006: I encountered the “take a couple pictures and the battery dies” problem myself. Thus far, no resolution. It seems that I can take somewhere between two and five pictures and then the camera shuts down, despite the battery having a seemingly full charge.
Luckily the batteries used by the camera are fairly common, though somewhat less so in the US than in the UK. I have found them here (charger here if you need one).
Free shipping on orders over $50, though I’m not sure how long that offer lasts. I’ve used this site before, and their products seem to work just fine – or they have in the past, at any rate. Let me know your experience if you use them and I can update the information here. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll invest more money in this camera or get a new one.
Update August 8, 2006: I ended up purchasing two of the batteries and a new charger from Atbatt.com (as linked above). I used them somewhat extensively on a trip last week, and they worked wonderfully. I have tried charging the old batteries, and they still aren’t working too well, but at least the camera is working again.
Update: Alas, the camera itself finally died, due to my own problems (I dropped it). For some reason, the camera works to some degree – it will go through menus and whatnot, but it won’t actually go through with the taking of any pictures or anything. So I’ve moved on. I have another Traveler camera, and I’ll post a review of it soon. It does not take these batteries, however, so if anyone needs any, contact me using the link below if you need some and make me a fair offer if you’re interested.
Update: The camera and all accessories have been sold. Thanks!
Comments
96 responses to “Traveler Digital Camera”
I purchased the slimline camera a week ago. I went to Aldi after work and was surprised that they still had some left…amazing price for what you get. My brother and daughter both purchased the 6.3 camera after Christmas. I really like that one then…this slimline one is smaller and I like it better. I have not been able to get it hooked in the docking station so I am not sure what that is all about. I just use the AC adapter and plug in the wall. We are going on a trip this year and it should fit in a fanny pack very nicely. I like what I see.
I just purchased the Traveler Slimline X5 from ALDI for $199. This is a first time camera for a young adult and the quality and features were important. I am satisfied that the camera is simple to use and appears to be of good quality.
After a lot of searching, I found who makes the camera. It is the same a “Konica Minolta Dimage E50” Check out this site.
I recently purchased the slimline and i love it. I work in a photo lab and have previously owned 3 other digital cameras…two fujis and a kodak. I had the fuji with the 10 optical zoom and took it to vegas and was dissapointed….wish I had had the slimline then….the pictures ive taken so far are great and I see alot of digital pictures everyday at work…thousands. This camera has lots of bang for the buck…nice and compact too and Ive never seen another brand offer you two batteries plus a 256 card for that price..amazing.
Greetings, I am an employee with ALDI and I have never known ALDI to be such high quality, that is until a started working there. I was inquiring to how good this little camera that I just bought is and I found this message forum. It is the slim line and it does have a lot of features for an extremely cheap price and nobody has returned the similar 6.3 MP Traveler, which is a good sign! So far so good and I love the camera!!
What is the likelihood of the LCD screen going bad?
Thank you I waited on this response so now I’m going shopping thank you again.
Just bought the Slimline x5 on Monday, and gave it a test run yesterday. First off, I have to say I am pretty impressive by this unit. Low price, lots of features. On top of that, the camera is quite ease of use.
Some of the neat features from the camera are:
1) 3 Color modes – Normal (color), B&W, and Sepia.
2) 3 Capture modes – Single, Continuous, and AEB (have not figured out what is the difference between this and Continuous mode).
3) Docking Station
4) 2.5″ LCD screen
5) Embedded Quick View, and Slide Show options
There is one draw back that I see: because of the size of the unit and the LCD screen, it does not provide a traditional view finder window. So if the LCD goes bad, the unit is rendered useless.
Overall, I am happy with the unit and probably gives it a rating of 8 on a scale of 1-10.
Can someone please rate the traveler digital camera on a scale of 1 to 10(highest)? Aldi have them on sale and I would like to purchase one. Thanks!
Memory cards are just SD cards – I picked up some 512MB mini-SD cards (with adapters for regular-size slots) for $50 or so not long ago.
What is the availability and cost of extra memory cards?