What is the difference between a VGA camera and a digital camera?

Question

My son wants one for christmas what is the advantage if any

Answer 1

VGA cameras are digital cameras with a resolution of 640x480 lines. This is what most point & shoots use for their video clips.
(640x480 works out to just 0.3 megapixel.) For still images, you'd want something with 5 megapixels or more.
Here's a good review site (if you've already made a short list): http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
(Just about any Canon point & shoot is good. For low light situations, the Fuji F30 is currently the best (won't require the flash indoors and during dusk). And if you were thinking about a digital SLR - these don't shoot video - the Nikon D50 is a great 'budget' model with an upgrade path that can last a lifetime.)

Answer 2

All of them are digital cameras, as opposed to cameras which use a film that has to be developed and printed using chemicals in a dark room. A VGA camera is one with a resolution of 640x480, this is 307200 pixels or about 0.3 megapixels. To take a good picture you need a camera with a minimum of 1.3Mpixels, many phones have cameras that can do 4Mpixels or more, mine is an 8Mpixel camera in my phone. If you were just buying a camera then you'd be looking for 12Mpixel or more. Obviously a camera in a phone isn't going to be as good as a device which is dedicated to the job of being a camera because it has to be miniaturised. The image is arranged as a grid, like with graph paper. The number of squares (pixels) along the top of the image multiplied by those down the side gives you the total number of pixels. Mega just means million so a 12Mpixel camera captures around twelve million pixels. The more the number of pixels the smaller that each pixel is, so the sharper the image. Don't forget that there's more to a camera than how many pixels it can distinguish. The quality of the lens is equally important, phone cameras are never as good as a device which is just a camera because they have to use a tiny lens.

Answer 3

VGA = the quality of the pictures are like the ones from a cell phone or sometimes even worse.

A Digital camera 3 mega pixels and higher will do the trick.. great quality, but not all digital cameras that state to be 5.mp are really 5mp.. So try buying a camera from a known manufactorer like KODAK, HP, FUJI or SONY.

But if your son is small and want's to star taking pictures. just buy him a Fuji 3 megapixel camera , simple to use and with great quality pictures.!!!

Answer 4

VGA camera is a digital camera with VGA resolution, that's about 0.3 Megapixels. You can find many high-res digital camera these days, usually now the entry level starts at 5.0 Megapixels.