Casio QV10a

This was the start of the digital camera revolution. This is the earliest  digicam that most people would recognise imediately as a digital camera. 

It had a viewing screen! You could now see the photo that you had just taken. No need to hook up to a computer, transfer files via infer red or via some incredibly slow data cable connection. Instant gratification and if you didn't like the photo. Just delete it and start again. It had a rotating lens which allowed the some of the first 'selfies' before 'selfies' were a thing! It runs on AA batteries and was completely made from plastic. 

Casio made all this cheaper than anyone else and they were a major innovator in the early designs of digicams. Some of there later designs included credit card Exilim cameras, the first digicam watch, photo sticker digicams and even mp3 digicams.

The camera is not without some shortfalls however.  Firstly it is SLOW. The time from pressing the shutter and the image being written to the memory is about 3-5 seconds. Which is an eternity in todays 10 frames per second world of digital cameras. Also the first model had a fault that meant the memory would become corrupt if the battery died while in in use. The later model QV10a had a button to format the memory in this situation. 

Reviews

Read about the Casio QV10 in this review here 

Photos