DXG dishes out 5Mp camcorder with games
Computer games on your camcorder? That's just crazy
California-based DXG has launched a new ultra-compact digital camera/camcorder that doubles as a portable entertainment centre. The DXG-589V features a 3in LCD Screen that rotates to a Gameboy-style shape for playing 20 built-in video games.

The DXG-589V features a digital camera (up to 10 megapixels) and VGA camcorder (MPEG-4 video at 640 x 480 and 30 frames per second) plus said video game player, but it also sports a digital music player, and can record direct video from TVs or DVD players: video files can be saved onto SD cards.
Shipping at $200/£100, information was not yet available on dimensions, formats supported by the music player or whether it would be available in the UK. In fact, the news was so...er, new, that the product wasn't even up on the manufacturer's website yet.
COMMENTS
Are those PSX action buttons I see?
So, it has the square-circle-cross-triangle action buttons. One wonders if it those 20 built in games are PSOne or PS2 games.
Playing games on cameras isn't a new concept tho. People have hacked Casio cameras in the past to run stripped down versions of MAME iirc.
Memory Card Camcorders
Are pretty common in the US, I suppose this must be true of Britain too - but this is a curious mixture, although a tad expensive.
But you get what you pay for - and they are usually priced well below $100 or 50 quid, so the quality is often pretty bad.
Also you nearly always need to buy an SD card, if there is one provided or it has on-board memory it usually isn't much - certainly not enough to record more than a few minutes of video in low resolutions.
But the specs seem good, and it would be interesting to see if it really can produce frame rates of 30fps at 640 x 480.
As for recording TV and video - that's not particularly new on camcorders, but recording composite TV signals to SD is. I believe the only similar device is something that can do the same for the memory stick (but that's all it can do - it's not a camcorder).
Is the price right...?
Is the $199 = £100 the actual retail price, or just a conversion put in by the author?
I'll be impressed if we don't see a Rip Off Britain price of £199 applied here...
Curious why it's so cheap?
DXG makes cameras with no zoom, and with fixed-focus lenses. Lot cheaper when you don't need the lenses or mechanical parts for zooming or focusing.
As for whether they're worth even the low price you pay for them, well, I guess that depends on what you're using them for.
-fred
