What do you do when you’re out and about and forgot your camera? Well, if for some strange reason you don’t want to use your phone, Five Below has you covered. I checked out the store’s $15 camera offering, the Up-Tech Mini Digital Camera. Is it worth it?
I’ve previously experimented with buying the cheapest camera I could find on Amazon. It was a camera that came in many guises with many different names, but ultimately ended up costing me $20 and tax. While not being below $5 as the name of the store implies, $15 still makes it the cheapest digital camera that’s not specifically aimed at kids.
The box lists some specs that, while not promising, sound like they are worth about $15. The resolution of the camera is listed at 3 MP, video is at Full HD and it comes with a USB-C cable and a 256 MB (yes, megabytes) card. It’s described as a “Focus Free Camera” with a “Digital Navigation Screen.” I’m not sure what other types of navigation screens to expect; perhaps there are cameras that use parchment paper on rolls?
Anyway, moving on.
Build Quality
I was able to take apart the previous cameras and discovered that the insides were basically webcams placed into a cheap plastic shell. While I strongly suspect that’s also the case with the Up-Tech camera, there seem to be no visible screws at all that I can use to open the camera up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was held together by glue, but all that said, I can’t tell what’s actually inside without breaking the camera.
That said, it’s actually not a bad-looking body. If you’re into minimalist camera designs, the front is adorned with just the lens, two LED lights (not actual flashes), and a microphone, and that’s it. Up top, there’s a USB-C port for charging or hooking up to a computer for it to be read as a USB drive. Out back, there’s a 2.2-inch LCD display. On my copy, the screen is slightly tilted and doesn’t sit quite properly in the frame when it’s turned on. There are six buttons: one with a lock icon that appears to do nothing; an “M” button for mode (it starts in video mode all the time, which is a bit confusing, and you have to push “M” to switch to automatic photo mode, labeled with an “A” on screen); up and down arrows to navigate through menus or turn off the screen or microphone when no menus are up; a menu button; and finally an “OK” button that doubles as a shutter button. The power button on the side also functions to turn on the LED lights. It also took me a while to figure out that the mode button also puts the camera into playback mode.
The bottom features a hole to reset the camera and a tripod mount. Just don’t screw the tripod in too tightly, as the entire body is constructed of the cheapest plastic I’ve ever felt in a camera. In fact, after just one use, the metal cylinder that held the threads for the mount just came right out of the camera; I don’t think the manufacturers ever expected it to be used, since apparently there wasn’t even glue holding it into the plastic shell.
All of this is as bad as it gets.
Image and Video Quality
But, one can look aside cheap build quality if the pictures are up to par. Unfortunately, they aren’t. On an overcast day that should provide precisely zero challenge for any camera, this is the best the Up-Tech could come up with:
On a sunny day, it didn’t fare much better. Images looked worse than an iPhone’s fake maximum zoom level, with detail smeared away at all times. Here’s an example of my kids sharing a tender moment where you can barely make out that they are humans.
The quartz dating seemed to reset itself every time I turned on the camera and that’s why it appears as if these photos were taken in 2024.
I was hoping that getting close to things might help the camera render some fine details, but alas, it did not.
And finally, video image quality is, well, about what you’d expect given the rest of the conditions here. I tried to record about a minute of video talking about the camera each time, but it seemed to randomly wipe out previously recorded videos as well as only record incomplete bits of each monologue. This was using the included microSD card. So what you’re left with here is this 14-second clip where I talk about how I wouldn’t wish this camera on my worst enemy and that perhaps the video would redeem the camera. Warning, it’s 14 seconds of your life that you won’t get back:
Yikes is the only word I have for this video quality. It’s almost impressionistic in its rendering.
What I Liked
- At least I got a USB-C cable in the box with the camera. I like it better than the camera.
What I Didn’t Like
- Feels like it will fall apart easily
- It did actually fall apart at the tripod mount
- I have 20-year-old cell phones that take better photos than this.
Conclusion
At least with the previous pink camera I reviewed, it had some games on it. No such luck this time.
If you’re looking to set $15 on fire, go ahead and buy this camera. You’ll never get anything usable out of it.
Instead, spend a little bit more and get something with at least a reputable name attached to it from a reputable retailer, such as the Kodak PRINTOMATIC, which at least gives you a printer in addition to a digital camera for the $60 it costs. At least Fstoppers’ Adam Ottke didn’t hate it back in the day.
I’m not sure how anybody who’s picking out the products for Five Below’s shelves could have green-lit this camera as the store’s offering. It’s not even fun in the “vintage” type of way, which is honestly where I was hoping this camera would fall.
Finally, a perfect camera for UFO, bigfoot and Loch Ness monster sightings.
OK, I had to chuckle at that one.