The WORST. Review on Agfa ephoto CL18

I am not sure if I own a CL18 or CL15..but I don’t think it matters. I don’t know because it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the camera or the user’s manual..not “obviously visible” at least. Moreover, I was so disappointed with the camera and AGFA, that I didn’t bother to look minutely anyway.

I bought this camera, through Xoom.com who, through their ad-mail, offered this camera at heavy discount. The camera is supposed to cost about US.$.79.00 in the stores. They claimed it was rated as “best buy” by several photography magazines. Xoom.com with Agfa were offering it for just US.$.39.00. The ad-e-mail also claimed that AGFA had a website : support.agfa.com/homeOffice.. where, after having bought the camera, you could create a “ONE-TO-ONE SUPPORT ACCOUNT” . You can “post” your difficulty or complain at this site, and the service personnel help you solve them, on personalised, one-to-one basis. Like a fool, I was impressed and got taken in….I placed an order. Upon placing the order I was supposed to pay US.$.59.00 and after receiving the camera, I was to send a copy of the invoice to Agfa and receive a refund of US.$.20.00 (which never came)

First of all you can only take 16 pictures. at a time. You have to download (transfer) them to your PC, clear the camera and then you can take 16 more. The quality of the pictures is atrocious. So bad, and “grainy” that it is impossible to even recognise the person in the picture. The camera needs 2 pencil cells. The batteries last only upto 48 pictures ( three sets of 16), since you have to download the first two sets of 16 before taking the last set of 16 pictures. The downloading of the pictures to your PC eats up a lot of battery-power. To download the last set, you will have to use new batteries.

I remembered about the “ONE-TO-ONE SUPPORT ACCOUNT”, …Set it up, and posted a complaint about the picture quality. Their reply was very prompt. They gave me a “case number” for future references, and they asked me to mail a few pictures to evaluate my complain. I sent them Five pictures. THE REPLY I GOT, WAS UNBELIEVABLE…They replied “You have bought a camera for US.$.39.00. For this price the quality of images you sent are very much satisfactory”….I was dazed…I was under the impression that I had bought a camera that was worth more than US.$79.00 (it was supposed to be rated “best buy” for US.$.79.00) …and THIS was what they replied…!!! But this was not all….The “best” was yet to come…I posted a reply that “the camera, as they CLAIMED was a “best buy” at79.00, and hence as per their own ad-mail,.it was worth more than $.79.00 and not just $.39.00..moreover I was yet to receive the $.20.00 refund…a camera worth $.79.00 shouldn’t give such poor picture quality.” They did not reply. I waited for a week ..and posted the same message again…waited for one more week and posted the same message once again ….Yet I got no reply…after about a month…I got a mail from them….It said…”Since there has been no correspondence from you, we take it that you are satisfied with our earlier reply and hence the case stands closed.”

If AGFA happens to be the only camera manufacturer in the world….I’ll go without a camera…but will NEVER NEVER buy another AGFA in my life.