Edward, you hit the nail on the head. He doesn't know.
Consider, it's not the power drain that is important, it is the total energy consumption per picture. Energy = Power * time. When I read about the 1.5-3.0 second capture time and the 17 second recovery time of the Agfa ePhoto 1280 (see: zdnet.com ) which uses flash memory, I wondered what was going on. Here are a few possibilities.
Case 1: Camera has RAM into which the picture is staged, taking around 1.5-3.0 seconds, followed by a copy to flash memory for around 17 seconds.
Case 2: Camera has no RAM, but writes directly to flash. It either takes 1.5-3.0 seconds to do this followed by a 17 second recovery, or, it takes 1.5-3.0 seconds for various and sundry processes, followed by 17 seconds of writing directly to flash.
In either case, the energy use is about equivalent. If not, then why the need for the recovery at all?
To simplify, it matters very little what the power drain is.
What matters is how many pictures you can take, at each resolution, before you need to replace the batteries.
It is unknown right now how the final Clik! product will stack up. Allen was correct that it is still in the prototype stage.
One final note. The Agfa ePhoto 1280 uses 4 AA NiMH batteries. See:
agfahome.com
They obviously know their flash-based camera energy needs would make it unmarketable if they didn't equip it with high-energy density rechargeable batteries.
If a Clik! based camera is as energy hungry, it will also have such a power supply.
Thus the FUD-meister's arguments about battery usage is silly to the extreme. For what camcorder user doesn't pack extra tape and batteries commensurate with the expected use? And what film-based camera user doesn't pack extra film and batteries commensurate with the expected use? So will Clik!-based camera users pack extra film and batteries commensurate with the expected use. |
