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Sony%squots Mavica: Snapshots on a Standard Floppy

The Mavica is the first digital camera to let you save a photo to a floppy disk.

By Bill Snyder, PCWorld   

Sony addresses the problem with its Digital Mavica, the first digital camera that saves photos to a standard 3.5-inch floppy. Each disk can store up to 40 images at 640-by-480, 24-bit VGA resolution. That%squots a far cry from the pictures that come out of a standard camera, but good enough to attach an instant photo to an e-mail or slide presentation.

And getting the photos into your PC is easy. Take a picture, wait six or seven seconds, then preview it on a 2.5-inch color LCD. If you like, save it as a JPEG file and pop the floppy into your computer. You don%squott need much software to view the files--the built-in viewer that comes with many Windows 95 programs is good enough. You can edit photos with any standard package, including ArcSoft PhotoStudio, which is bundled with the camera.

The downside? At just over a pound, some people might find it a bit heavy, and the six- or seven-second wait between photos could mean missing a shot you%squotd really like to grab.

Sony figures the camera will sell best to business users, particularly real estate agents who want to show clients a hot prospect in a hurry, and insurance adjusters, who need to get quick evidence of property damage.

The Digital Mavica will be available in two versions: The MVC-FD5 will sell for $599 and should be available via retail in late July; the $799 MVC-FD7 has a number of additional features, including a 10X optical zoom lens and five preprogrammed exposure settings. It will be available in late August.