Back in 2002, digital cameras were expensive, bulky and hard to use.  Logitech, the popular mouse and keyboard maker, tried to change that with its Pocket Digital camera.  It was like the Flip camcorder of the camera world, expect unsuccessful.

The Pocket Digital was very compact, about the size of a credit card, and could not have been simpler to use.  The anodized aluminum case slid open to turn the camera on and the whole thing was controlled by two buttons on the back in addition to the shutter up top.  There was a tiny, basic monochrome display on the back to show some basic information, but all pictures had to be composed with the optical viewfinder.

Even for those days, the Pocket Digital was seen as a very basic camera.  There was not even a flash.  It took VGA photos (could interpolate up to 1.3 megapixels) and only had 16MB of internal memory, with no memory card slot.  So in total, you could store about 53 photos on the device.

The Logitech Pocket Digital was actually based off a reference design from a company called SMaL.  Other companies, such as Creative and RadioShack, made similar credit card-sized cameras, but the Logitech stood out for its metal, sliding design that only weighed 1.8 ounces.

Though this camera had some nice qualities, it was priced a little too high at $130 when it first came out.  It just did not offer enough to justify the price tag.

In late 2003, Logitech released an update to this camera called the Pocket Digital 130.  It upped the sensor to a full 1.3 megapixels and added a flash, while keeping the sliding metal design.

However, that was too little, too late.  The Logitech Pocket Digital was caught in between the trends of digital cameras getting smaller and cameraphones getting better.  There was no room left for a dedicated mini camera that took mediocre to poor photos.

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