Close call
NO, DIGIBINOS are not characters from the Digimon cartoon series. While their name certainly sounds like digital monsters, Digibinos are actually a new product category that combines the functions of a digital camera and age-old binoculars.
The concept itself makes perfect sense. Of course whatever is worth the effort of looking at through binoculars is obviously worth taking a photo of.
The Digibino EC-01 from Hong Kong firm, Freefire, and the Digibino DB100 from Pentax are both roof prism type fixed focus binoculars providing up to 8x magnification (7x for the Pentax), plus they can both take photos with a built-in digital cameras.
The EC-01 comes with a 34mm lens - equivalent to a 150mm lens in 35mm format - 2x digital zoom and a 1/2-inch CMOS image capturing sensor capable of outputting 1.3 Megapixel images. The older Pentax comes with a 37mm lens - equivalent to a 280mm lens in 35mm format, but no zoom at all, and only features 800,000 pixel imaging.
I'm not too sure about the quality of the binoculars, but both Digibinos won't replace your digital camera. The humungous telephoto lens severely limits their use, so it's not easy to take photos at a party or indoors since telephoto lenses are not built to handle these lighting conditions.
Neither Digibinos have an expandable memory slot, which means that at the 1.3 Megapixels of the EC-01, you get about 35 photos (you get 100 photos with the Pentax's lower resolution).
Yet the Digibinos have their advantages. Most digital camera zooms are inadequate when it comes to taking photos of objects more than a couple of metres away, and those that do come with big lenses often cost several times more than the Digibinos. The EC-01 is listed for $1,280 on the maker's website, while the Pentax sells for about US$250 (HK$1,947) from various online retailers.
PROS:
Big telephoto lens
CONS:
No memory expansion, fixed lens
