Nikon Coolpix P1 and P2 WiFi-enabled digicams
posted Sep 1st 2005 7:30AM
Nikon is dropping a brace of digital cameras endowed with onboard WiFi, which should be cause for much celebration among fans of photo-sharing sites like Flickr, Buzznet et al — but before you pop the cork on that champagne, you'd better brace yourself for some bad news. The Coolpix P1 and P2 (at five and eight megapixels, respectively) do have built-in WiFi — however, that WiFi connection is only good for one thing: sending photos to your desktop machine. You can't automagically connect to the internet and upload photos. Plus, you can't even upload photos to your computer without first installing Nikon's PictureProject software, so if you're at a friend's house and want to send over some photos, you'd better have that install CD on you, or you're stuck with the old tried and true USB method anyway. They're hitting at the end of this month for €429/$529 for the P1 (pic after the jump) and €329/$405 for the P2 (pictured above), and we're gonna hold out until someone hacks them to send stuff direct.
This is going to be fun. At my work we have to support a lot of pro photographers who bought the Nikon WT-2 and Canon WFT-E1A for their D2x and 1DS Mk-II. Not that many people actually know the IP of their computers to even get started setting these things up. And to set up an FTP on your computer with proper access rights among other things. Their own tech support are useless. OTOH you can't expect some underpaid CSR to spend the time to figure out the network settings that even the customers don't know.
Oh, and just because some Jane Above-Average got it set up for her laptop at home, it doesn't mean she can take it all on her next trip and expect it to work just fine. Better bring an USB cable!
Maybe they'll make some new standard like "WiFi on-the-go" as for USB :)