Pocket Review Concord DVx installment 01

The Concord DVx is a combination MPEG-4 movie camcorder, 2-megapixel camera, MP3 player, LED flashlight, voice recorder, and an SD (Secure Digital)/MMC (Multi Media Card) card reader. They call it the "Swiss Army Knife of digital cameras," which I imagine the Swiss Army Knife people might object to considering this device is all plastic and doesn't strike me as being that rugged. It sells for $199 and comes with a 128MB SD card.

First disappointment: it's not compatible with Macintosh, which makes it pretty useless to me on the whole. I will have to find a friend or coworker who's using a PC to let me install software and download images and such when I have them.

The first step: battery charging (6 hours for first time, according to documentation; I started at 11:46 a.m.). Taking the battery door off is easy enough, but putting it back on needs a gentle understanding touch or I could see the thin plastic face getting cracked easily on the upper left where the door fits around what I assume is a speaker. The plastic has a delicate feel to it, and I didn't dare test its limits of robust-ocity.

Red charger backlight went off sometime before 1:00 p.m., which was only a little more than one hour of charging time. Unplugged and replugged in USB/AC connection and the red light came back on.

So, six hours from now, I'll be able to play with it a little.