Send Your Pictures Soaring
Photograph: Marc SimonDigital cameras are relatively new to the Wi-Fi scene, but the idea makes sense: You have to transfer pictures from your camera somehow, and using Wi-Fi eliminates worries about forgetting USB cables or flash memory adapters. We entertained visions of dropping by any Wi-Fi café in Moscow or Tokyo to send snapshots home, sans laptop.
Sadly, those dreams aren't yet a reality: Neither the 4-megapixel, 3X-optical-zoom Kodak EasyShare-one nor the 5-megapixel Nikon Coolpix P2 lives up to the full promise of a wireless camera. For now, choose your digital camera for its picture-taking features, rather than for its Wi-Fi support or lack thereof. That said, both models we looked at will appeal to Wi-Fi fans in several ways.
Kodak EasyShare-one
At $500, the EasyShare-one is pricey, but it is the only Wi-Fi camera able to connect directly to the Internet. You can upload pictures straight to Kodak's EasyShare Gallery via 802.11b, and e-mail links to friends. You can also wirelessly transfer photos to your computer.
The EasyShare-one is not especially simple to use, though, and other limitations keep us from getting too excited. While it supports both WEP and WPA encryption, the device can't connect to a Wi-Fi network that has a log-in page (which rules out most public hotspots). T-Mobile, however, has a deal with Kodak that lets subscribers to T-Mobile's hotspot service use the camera with that service; customers who don't want a full-blown hotspot subscription can set up a camera-only account for $5 per month.
Another drawback is that Wi-Fi transfers to your computer require using the EasyShare Gallery album software. And you can't e-mail the actual photos from your camera, just thumbnails that link to the Gallery site. Read our January review for more about the EasyShare-one.
Nikon Coolpix P2
In most ways, the $300 Coolpix is even more limited than the EasyShare. It does let you use Wi-Fi for camera-to-computer transfer and printing, and it supports the faster 802.11g (as opposed to the Kodak model's 802.11b), along with WEP and WPA encryption. But Wi-Fi transfers, which require both camera setup and specific software on your computer, are needlessly complex; using a USB cable is much easier. And the model offers no support for hotspots, e-mail, or direct-to-Web uploads.
The P2's one cool Wi-Fi feature is a Wireless Live Transfer mode that bypasses the camera's memory card and sends pictures directly to your computer as you take them, a convenience that might be especially useful in some photo studios or labs. The 8-megapixel Nikon P1 ($400) has the same Wi-Fi features as the P2.
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