Is a Protax a decent digital camera?

Question

I want a camera, the more megapixels the better, that will take good action shots. My price range is somewhat limited and I found several Protax 10mp cameras on EBay and was wondering if these would suit my purpose. (Purpose- My daughter plays basketball and I would like to take some good action shots with a digital camera for her scrapbook).

Answer 1

Protax is a crap brand that's just trying to sound like Pentax (which is a quite good brand). Note that the specs claim that 10 megapixels is through interpolation - a software trick - and that the actual resolution is only 3.1 megapixels.
If you want an affordable point and shoot that does well in low light situations such as indoor sporting events, try a Fuji F30 or F31. But like all point & shoots, these are relatively sluggish to capture a shot.
If you want something that's responsive and does well in low light situations, you'll need a digital SLR camera. The Nikon D50 and the Canon 350D are great entry level models.

Answer 2

Just from my experience - don't buy off of ebay.
1) You never know what you are going to get regardless of how good the rating is of the person you are buying from.
2) Warranties are very, very, very rarely valid because warranties are non-transferable (person to person sales), and because if you buy a non-USA model the USA division of the company that made the camera will not (unless they have international warranties) repair your camera under warranty.

If you buy from e-bay, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Also, Protax is not one of the major camera manufacturers so you may likely have problems getting information online and still may have difficultly obtaining service for your camera if anything should happen.

I recommend Fujifilm, Pentax, Canon, Nikon, or if you must - sony. Fuji and Pentax will be the most affordable.