Mesh Photo Pro 200

24-bit colour up to a resolution of 1,024 « 768, which is as it should be for a photo station like this. It's a shame about the lack of a more heavyweight graphics card like a Millennium II, but this system only costs £1,299, and there's still the Fuji DS-7 to take into account.

We previously reviewed the Fuji DS-7 (issue 31, p160), but to recap, what you have here is a compact, fairly basic digital camera with two distinctive features. The first is the absence of a viewfinder in the traditional sense; you see the potential picture in a matchbox-sized colour LCD screen set into the back of the camera instead. This can make focusing difficult at all ranges, as the definition isn't crystal clear, especially in bright or dark conditions, but it does seem to objectify the process of picture composition slightly, which sometimes improves the final result.

The other feature of the DS-7 is the removable 2Mb Flash memory SmartMedia card it uses to store images. The card can store either 30 images at a resolution of 640 « 480 or 60 at 320 « 240, yet only measures 37 « 45mm and is less than 1mm thick. The beauty of this arrangement is that you can exchange a full card for a fresh one, just like changing the film in a conventional camera.

Once you've finished shooting, you connect the camera to the serial port on the PC and use a simple applet to download some or all of the images from the SmartMedia card to disk. Mesh bundles a copy of Adobe PhotoDeluxe, which gives you a basic set of editing tools and an environment from which to print.

This last part of the process is carried out by the Aztech photo developer mounted in one of the machine's 5.25in drive bays. This is fed from a 20-sheet cartridge of 3.5 « 5in, photo-sensitive paper. When the paper is exposed to a variable light source in the printer, it develops at a print resolution of 160dpi in 16.7 million colours, which is similar quality to a conventional Polaroid. Mesh is currently selling the cartridges for £8.99, which pans out at 45p per print.

Quite frankly, the Fuji-Aztech combination prints are no way comparable to 35mm prints - they look more like grainy Polaroids. This effectively rules out the Photo Pro as a replacement for your own camera - to do that you'd need to spend around £1,500 on digital camera and printer alone. However for Web work, the Fuji is just about sufficient.

As a standalone PC the Photo Pro simply doesn't cut the mustard. Performance was poor, below what we'd expect from a K6/200-based machine, and in addition the expansion potential is limited. The final blow is the camera itself; as you'll see from this month's Labs (reviewed p116), the Fuji DS-7 is now a little behind the times, as the Fuji DX-5 scooped our Value award instead.

If you're anxious to get into digital photography and need a new PC too, the Photo Pro is a bad choice. Instead, you'd be better off investigating both of our Labs this month for a combination better suited to your needs and budget. For now, the Mesh Photo Pro is a bold, but ultimately unfulfilled experiment.

Author: Dominic Bucknall