With ICT in schools, it’s all about accessibility. Now most schools (small primaries, in particular) will probably throw up their hands in horror at the recommendation to budget around pound;400 to pound;500 for a digital camera. OK, so you can buy several cheaper ones for the same money, but if you do you won’t be offering pupils and staff the ease of accessibility to the technology that they would get with Sony’s Mavica FD-92 with its floppy disc storage.

With this camera you simply place a blank floppy into the camera. Take your pictures. Place the same disc into a computer’s disc drive and, bingo, the photos are immediately accessible in any application that can handle the jpeg images.

For most of schools, the humble, cheap universally compatible floppy disc reigns. With this camera you don’t need the encumbrance of expensive (and easily lost) memory cards, optional disc-drive caddies, leads and quirky transfer software required by other models.

What’s more, the FD-92 has another trick up its sleeve - digital video. This camera can store mpeg (compressed) movies onto a floppy disc! One floppy can store up to 60 seconds of good quality video with sound. As with the still pictures, movies are stored in a Web format for easy uploading to a website or for inclusion in a multimedia presentation.

The camera has improved floppy disc speed, so it saves about 10 times faster than the floppy drive in your desktop. Like its predecssors, the FD-92 battery seems to last forever. You could go out for a day’s shoot with 10 boxes of floppy discs and still have some spare power.

The quality has improved, too. You can store about six to eight 1472 x 1104 (1.6 million) pixel pictures or (more realistically) 10 or more 3:2 mode images for photo albums (1280 x 848 pixels). The camera also takes 640 x 480 pixel and 320 x 240 pixel images (email mode). The FD-92 also has all the pre-programmed special effects and modes that were so popular with earlier Mavicas. All this and it’s a cinch to use, too.

Cambridgeshire Software House, Sony’s Mavica educational dealer, offers this camera at around pound;500, including both comprehensive support and the company’s unique Mirage picture viewing software. For a camera guaranteed to enthuse your staff and pupils alike, the Mavica FD-92, with its superior features, ease of use, convenience, excellent optics and, above all, accessibility to the media is definitely a sure-fire winner.

Cambridge Software House, PO Box 163, Huntingdon, Cambs PE28 3URTel: 01487 741223

http:ourworld.compuserve.comhomepagescshsoftabout.htmwww.mavican.nu is a website of the ‘Mavican community’ run by enthusiasts and has loads of useful information and tips

Sony Mavica FD-92

Suitibility for purpose *****

Ease of use *****

Value for money *****