There are many products to choose from when looking for the best childrens digital camera. Here I’ve narrowed down the field to the top two cameras for children aged three and up based on customer reviews and feedback. 

Age is very important when thinking about kids digital cameras. Here I’m specifically focusing on young children (preschool and up) between three and 5 years old. This isn’t to say older kids won’t be happy with these selections but these are the ones to look for as your child’s first introduction to digital photography.

For these recommendations durability and ease of use are the primary consideration for the younger age range. Older kids may start transitioning to needing less indestructible cameras with better picture quality and features. I’ll be following up with recommendations for those age groups in future posts.

The top two contenders for best childrens digital camera are the Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera and the Vtech Kidizoom Plus. Both of these kids digital cameras have received great reviews on durability, ease of use, and overall features.

Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera

• Body: Durable rubber outer shell design, waterproof
• Resolution: 1.3 Megapixel
• Screen: 1.5” color LCD screen
• Memory: 64 MB internal (500 pictures)
• Comes in colors: Blue, Pink

The Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera has been a very popular model and was recently redesigned to add a waterproof housing to the list of features. As the name implies, this camera has a good reputation for being kid tough and will easily survive numerous drops and rough handling at the hands of toddlers. It’s also received high marks with regards to image quality as compared to cameras in this league (kids toy cameras).

One of the drawbacks is the camera does not have an SD expansion slot so you can add to the 64 MB of internal memory it comes with. You’ll have to either delete or transfer pictures to the computer after you’ve filled up the internal memory. Although 500 pictures is pretty generous you’ll find kids can go through shooting hundreds of pictures very quickly.

Overall this is a solid childrens digital camera that has withstood the test of time by many happy customers and introduced many children to digital photography.

VTech Kidizoom Plus Camera

• Body: Durable rubber outer shell design
• Resolution: 2.0 Megapixel
• Screen: 1.8” color LCD screen
• Memory: 256 MB internal (500+ pictures), SD slot for additional memory (up to 2GB) 
• Comes in colors: Blue, Pink
• Extras: Comes with TV connection cables, 5 games, shoots video

The VTech Kidizoom Plus Camera is an update to the standard VTech Kidizoom which is comparable to the Fisher-Price model. The updated Plus model has had a boost in memory, up from 16 to 256, shoots video, and also has an SD slot for upgradable memory. The upgraded memory as well as SD slot provides quite a boost in capability with regards to letting your kids go at it shooting as much as they want.

The Kidizoom Plus also comes with some neat extras such as cables to connect directly to the television for viewing and has 5 built in games. The games feature may or may not appeal to parents who want their child to focus on taking pictures but the added versatility may come in handy for others. 

Overall the Kidizoom Plus camera is a great upgrade from the previous model and has received glowing reviews from happy customers.

Summary

Both cameras would make an excellent first childrens digital camera. Each camera meets our criteria for durability and ease of use with the Fisher Price beating out the VTech slightly with its waterproof feature and time tested easy to use controls.  In terms of overall features the VTech packs more value for the price with more memory, tv connection feature, games, and video capability. Both cameras are similarly priced so you really can’t go wrong with either one.

We’d love to hear your feedback on your experiences with either camera, please share your comments below.

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Looking to introduce your child to digital photography for the first time? We’ll go over some things to look for when shopping for your first digital camera for kids. Children as young as three years old can get started with kids digital cameras and you’ll want to pick one that is appropriate for their age. Here we’ll give an overview of shopping for younger kids and we’ll follow-up on advice for shopping for older kids in future posts.

One of the suggestions I’ve read from a couple of different sources online is to look for the latest or most popular model as seen on TV or ads. Their reasoning is kids will be proud of their camera and want to show it off to their friends. I have to say I completely disagree with this advice and would caution you against buying something merely because it’s on TV ads or because it’s the newest model out. Your goal here should be to get your kids interested in taking pictures, not brand names and consumerism in my opinion. This may be a bit controversial so I’d love to hear your comments on this.

Another reason not to go along with this advice is that, particularly when it comes to electronics, you don’t really want to buy the newest thing. Often there just isn’t enough information out there about the quality of the product. Wait until the market has had a chance to test the product and do a little bit of research online before spending your hard earned money on a substandard camera.

My recommendation is to focus on two major areas when shopping for kids digital cameras. These are durability and ease of use. You’ll want a camera that can survive the rough handling by younger kids especially if you plan on having more than one child share the camera. You’ll also want to make sure they can pick up the camera right away and start having fun taking pictures.

These two areas are generally what set kids digital cameras apart from traditional digital cameras but it’s worth taking note what makes these specialized cameras durable and easy to use. Starting with the camera body you might notice kids digital cameras are generally ruggedized (usually a one piece rubber encased body) with no moving parts. This helps the camera survive drops and even spills and makes it easier to grasp with small hands. Ease of use is measured in how quickly the child can get going with the camera. Automatic shooting settings, large buttons, large LCD screen and a simple interface all contribute to the ease of use of the camera.

Of course, there are plenty of other technical features you may want to factor in. These will be the ones that have an effect on the price you end up paying. We’ll go into more detail on these in a following post and would love to hear back on what you look for when shopping for kids digital cameras.

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