Review: VTech KiddiZoom Duo Camera

By Becky Haynes

I have a 3-and-a-half-year-old child and from the moment the camera was taken out of the box he loved it. Within 10 minutes he had worked out the on and off button and was running around shouting cheese at everything and taking pictures, even if it was the corner of the table.

The ease of taking it straight out of the box and being able to use it without any need to set anything up was a great start, we all know how impatient kids can be. I was able to show him a couple of functions and then let him explore the camera himself. The camera design has obviously been thought out well from the bright colours to the big chunky rubber grips that fit children's hands perfectly to the overall robust sturdiness which helped a couple of times when the camera took a tumble. The camera can take quite a few photos before filling up the internal memory, which can happen quite quickly, but you also have the option of putting in an SD card which allows you to extend its capacity. You also have the option to connect it up to a computer via a USB cable which is supplied and save all those photo masterpieces your child has taken.

There are quite a few functions to keep your little one busy from being able to record videos to wacky photos and once you're in the creative tools one of our favourites is the silly face detector. There's a couple of functions like the games which are a bit beyond my son at the moment but these will come with time and the more he grows the more the camera will grow with him opening up the more advanced options. A couple of handy little functions are the parental controls, where to stop your children entering you are asked maths questions to let you in, once in you can control the amount of game/screen time they're allowed during the day. The other is the automatic switch off, just in case your child is distracted by something else the camera will shut down if left idle for too long saving the battery life.

The only down point of the camera is that it requires x4 AA batteries, so if you don't keep a stock of batteries hanging around you might have a grumpy child once the camera stops working followed by the same question of have you got any batteries yet. I'm surprised with the camera being digital that it isn't re-chargeable with a cable.

Overall, this is a great kids camera which I would give 4.5 stars.