Benq DC E1000 Digital Camera
by Tareq Kamal Hamdi on January 20, 2008

Features & Specifications


Today, we take a look at BENQ’s 10Mp camera with a 3” LCD display – the DC E1000 Digital camera. More or less, it’s designed as a “fun” camera that can also record videos at a single touch of a button.

Features


Specifications

 


 

Packaging & Looks


Packaging

BENQ packages the camera in a small box with some features written on the sides and on the top. Inside the box, we found a battery with its bay and a charger adapter, some cables such as the USB cable and video cable and finally a cover protector for the camera along with the DC E1000 Digital Camera itself.


The battery that comes with the BENQ DC E1000 Digital Camera is 3.7v with 820mAh which can last for more than 200 shots with flash without any issues.

The camera has an acceptable size to weight ratio and is easy to carry around. It is also user friendly with its functions. The flash is conveniently located on the top left while the light sensor measuring the amount of light sites above the 7.4-22.2mm lens.


On the bottom of the camera, you can see the grooves for a tri-pod stand which is always good to use in low light and higher ISO settings or shake-free videos. Next to it is the USB connecter which can be used to connect to your PC. Surprisingly, PictBridge isn’t supported as per the specifications. Lastly you can open up a bay which houses the battery and the SD card.


Pictures can be clearly viewed and areas properly focused using the massive 3” LCD screen on the back. Not surprisingly, the eye xxx is missing as in most basic Digital Cameras of late. Adjacent to screen are function keys which can be used to perform various operations and sub functions of the camera including zoom, macro mode, flash, main menu, switching between camera and video etc.


Suffice to say that using the BENQ will not be an issue for someone that has used a digital camera before. The button on the left powers the camera while the middle button is used for focusing and taking shots. The last button on the right enables/disables the promised shake-free images function.

Picture Comparison

We used two other cameras to carry out various tests to compare photo results and quality with the BENQ. The cameras used are the Sony DSC-T9 6.0Mp and the Nokia N73 Mobile Phone with its 3.2Mp camera. We did not manually adjust anything on any camera during the tests. Instead, we opted for the pre-adjusted settings on all cameras such as Macro, Landscape, Night shot and Portrait shots.
 
 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

We started off with daytime outdoor shots. Notice that BENQ actually captures the blue sky above the house while both the other cameras produce more white than blue.

 

 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

Next we took a night shot using the night mode on all cameras. The Sony DSC T9 camera took a very clean night shot however there are some areas that are not visible in the picture. BENQ on the other hand proved its mettle for an excellent night shot unmatched by Sony, whereas Nokia was far behind both of them.

 

 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

In the close up shots, we used the macro mode on all cameras with no flash. The Sony DSC T9 came up with a very nice picture quality. BENQ’s DC E1000’s picture had some problem with background noises clearly visible on some corners of the pictures. We also had a really hard time getting the BENQ to adjust to the zoom properly. Surprisingly, Nokia’s macro picture quality was the best in this test.


  
 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

This time, we used the same setting as the one in the test above but with flash turned on. Sony’s DSC T9 took the best picture in this scenario with great lighting and timing. BENQ’s flash couldn’t provide the right proportion for lighting and thus appeared a bit dull but pretty clear. Understandably, Nokia’s phone flash isn’t up to the standard of digital cameras.

   
 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

In another test, we used the Portrait mode indoors during daytime with no flash. The Sony DSC T9 got the lighting perfect but with a slightly lower picture quality. The DC E1000 messed up with the brightness and resulted in a very low quality picture. As for the N73, even it did not fare well, mixing up colors and light.

 
 Sony DSC-T9 - 6.0Mp  Benq DC E1000 - 10.0Mp  Nokia N73 - 3.2Mp

Continuing with the same test with the flash turned on this time reaped slightly different results. The Sony camera took the shot on the focused item with nice quality and visibility and left the background dark. The BENQ camera took a marginally better picture with some background still visible. The Nokia results persisted with some awful color mix ups and poor quality images.


Files Sizes and Conclusion


After taking the shots and criticizing the various images, we checked the image size and quality in detail.

 


  
 SonyBenq
Nokia 

As per the stats appearing above the Sony DSC T9 occupies 1.44MB of disk space with a 2048x1536 pixel dimensions. The BENQ DC E1000 can take each picture in 4.58MB on disk size with 3584x2688 pixel dimensions and the Nokia N73 can take the same pictures at 630KB on disk size with a resolution of 2048x1536. You can check the rest of details of each of the cameras by clicking at the pictures above.

Conclusion
At a price point of AED 790/- BENQ’s DC E1000 is a pretty good deal. From the pictures we took, this camera produced the best results in outdoor shoots like landscape and night mode. It also did good with close up shots using the macro mode and flash. With a little bit of manual tweaking, you can probably get some very nice shots out of it, no matter what the ambiance is.

So, as we mentioned at the start, this E1000 is more of a fun camera and such, should attract the casual or first time digital shooters- especially with its nice design. More experienced shooters will probably prefer something more expensive and higher-end.

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