Welcome to the wtg guide for the Best External Hard Drive 2019. If you are one of today’s mobile warriors, you may need an external hard drive to match your work or personal style. External hard drives can also be useful for easily adding extra storage to your computer. No need to remove screws or look for space within a computer’s chassis. Useful for video game consoles and tablets as well. Take a close look to see how these portable external hard drives measure up for daily use, storage capacity, performance, and physical size.
For the money, you cannot go wrong with the Western Digital external hard drive. It is backed by one of the most established manufacturers and comes with a healthy two-year manufacturer’s limited warranty. This WD external hard drive works with both Mac and PC. It has a sleek minimalist appearance and is available in multiple colors.
This Samsung drive fits in the palm of your hand, and is enclosed in a full metal jacket. It offers optional password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption. It includes USB Type C to C and USB Type C to A cables, and comes with a three-year warranty. This SSD (Solid State Drive) works with Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), Android 4.4 (KitKat) or higher. I’ve you want maximize performance, this is definitely worth a look.
There are so many flavors of Seagate external drives that you literally can browse page after page. We keep coming back to this external hard drive for its generous range of storage capacity. It works well on a Mac or PC, and gets its power from the USB cable so you do not need external power, which is helpful when on the road.
This Kingston Digital external hard drive is a miniaturization marvel. This is probably the tiniest large drive you could get—in a thumb drive form. It is roughly 3 inches by 1 inch by 1 inch. 2-terabyte capacity storage in your closed hand. It has superfast speeds of 300MB/s read and 200MB/s write. According to Kingston, that’s 70 hours of 4K footage. It comes in a high-end protective zinc alloy metal casing.
No, this SanDisk drive does not come with a carabiner for clipping it to your backpack, but it does have the loop. If you need a lot of space in a tough package that will fit easily in your pocket, this is the drive.
An external drive is just a hard drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) that is connected to a computer on the outside rather than on the inside.
Some external drives draw power over their data cable, which of course comes from the computer itself, while others may require an AC wall connection to derive power on their own.
One way to think of an external hard drive is as if it were a regular, internal hard drive that has been removed, covered in its own protective casing, and plugged into the outside of your computer.
Internal hard drives can even be converted into external hard drives via what’s called a hard drive enclosure.
External hard drives come in varying storage capacities, but they all connect to a computer either by USB, FireWire, eSATA, or wirelessly.
External hard drives are sometimes called portable hard drives. A flash drive is one common, and very portable, type of external hard drive.
Why Would You Use an External Drive?
External hard drives are portable, easy to use, and can provide a large amount of storage whenever you need it. You can store the actual device any place you like, and carry a large number of files with you wherever you go.
Another advantage of owning an external drive is that you can move them from computer to computer, making them great for sharing large files.
Because of their usually large storage capacities (often in the terabytes), external hard drives are often used to store backed up files. It’s common to use a backup program to back up things like a music, video, or picture collection to an external drive for safe keeping, separate from the originals in case they’re accidentally changed or deleted.
Even if not used for backup purposes, external hard drives provide an easy way to expand your existing storage without having to open up your computer, which is especially difficult if using a laptop.
If your computer is always giving you low disk space warnings or is sluggish because it’s working hard to keep things running on the little bits of free space it has left, it’s probably time to get an external hard drive so that you can copy some of your files to it and free up storage on your primary hard drive.
External hard drive can also be used to provide additional storage to an entire network (though internal hard drives are usually more common in these scenarios). These kinds of network storage devices can be accessed by numerous users at once and often serve as a way for users to share files within a network to avoid emailing or uploading the data online.
Internal Drives Versus External Drives
Internal hard drives are connected directly to the motherboard, whereas external storage devices first run through the outside of the computer case, and then directly to the motherboard.
Operating systems and software installation files are generally installed to internal drives, while external hard drives are used for non-system files, like photos, videos, documents, and files of those types.
Internal hard drives draw power from the power supply inside a computer. External hard drives are powered either through their data cable or via dedicated AC power.
Data can be compromised much easier if it’s stored on an external hard drive because they’re generally located on a desk or table, making them very easy to pick up and steal. This is different than an internal hard drive where the entire computer has to be taken, or the hard drive removed from the inside, before someone can have physical access to your files.
External hard drives are also generally moved around more than internal ones, causing them to fail more easily due to mechanical damage. SSD based drives, like flash drives, are less prone to this sort of damage.
How to Use an External Hard Drive
Using an external hard drive is as easy as plugging one end of the data cable into the drive as well as to the matching end on the computer, like the USB port in the case of USB-based external drives. If a power cable is required, it will need to be plugged into a wall outlet.
Normally, on most computers, it takes just a few moments before the contents of the external drive will appear on-screen, at which point you can begin moving files to and from the drive.
When it comes to the software side of things, you can use an external hard drive in nearly the exact same way as you would an internal one. The only difference is how you access the drive in your operating system.
Since most computer systems have just one hard drive that serves as the primary, ‘main’ drive, it isn’t confusing to jump right in to to the hard drive to save files, copy files from one folder to another, delete the data, etc.
However, an external hard drive appears as a second hard drive and therefore is accessed in a slightly different manner. In Windows, for example, external drives are listed next to the other devices in Windows Explorer and Disk Management.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Best External Hard Drive 2019
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Early computers like the ENIAC used vacuum tubes and were large (sometimes room size) and only found in businesses, universities, or governments. Later, computers began utilizing transistors as well as smaller and cheaper parts that allowed the ordinary person to own a computer.
Today, computers make jobs that used to be complicated much simpler. For example, you can write a letter in a word processor, edit it anytime, spell check, print copies, and send it to someone across the world in a matter of seconds. All these activities would have taken someone days, if not months, to do before. Also, these examples are a small fraction of what computers can do.
Today, computers make jobs that used to be complicated much simpler. For example, you can write a letter in a word processor, edit it anytime, spell check, print copies, and send it to someone across the world in a matter of seconds. All these activities would have taken someone days, if not months, to do before. Also, these examples are a small fraction of what computers can do.
Today, computers make jobs that used to be complicated much simpler. For example, you can write a letter in a word processor, edit it anytime, spell check, print copies, and send it to someone across the world in a matter of seconds. All these activities would have taken someone days, if not months, to do before. Also, these examples are a small fraction of what computers can do.
The first digital computer and what most people think of as a computer was called the ENIAC. It was built during World War II (1943-1946) and was designed to help automate the calculations being done by human computers. By doing these calculations on a computer, they could achieve results much faster and with fewer errors.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
Today, there are two types of computers the PC (IBM compatible) and Apple Mac. There are dozens of companies that make and build PCs, and if you get all the necessary parts for a computer, you can even build a custom PC. However, when it comes to Apple, only Apple designs and makes these computers. See our computer companies page for a listing of companies (OEMs) that make and build computers.
The CSS “Named Colors” section of the CSS Color Module Level 4—the latest specification for color values and properties within the Cascading Style Sheets language—are 141 standard colors. Each has its own name, so beyond the essentials of “black” and “white” are shades like “papaya whip,” a warm orange pastel; “lemon chiffon,” a faint, milky yellow; and “burlywood,” which has likely made an appearance on a safari tour guide’s shorts.
At first glance, these names seem fluffy, and they bear connotations of sugary, whimsical romanticism. Where do such abstract names come from, and why are they a part of something as methodical as writing code?
The answer to these questions begins in 1980s Massachusetts. Originally, the colors were a product of the X Window System (X), a graphical user interface (GUI) released by MIT in 1984. In June of 1986, the first list of GUI colors, which was tuned to the DEC VT240 series terminal, shipped with the third release of X’s tenth version (X10R3). It comprised 69 basic shades, with 138 entries to account for different cases in the color names (e.g., lowercase with spacing like “dark red” versus camel case like “DarkRed”).
In 1988, X11R2 arrived with the addition of three colors, including the identical shades “gray” and “grey.” According to Austin-based developer Alex Sexton, discussing the colors at a JavaScript Conference last year, programmers at Hewlett-Packard couldn’t remember the proper spelling (which was originally with an ‘a’). Including two names, it was thought, would prevent errors.
The most substantial release, created by Paul Raveling, came in 1989 with X11R4. This update heralded a slew of light neutral tones, and it was a response to complaints from Raveling’s coworkers about color fidelity. (In the ‘80s, colors could vary dramatically from monitor to monitor, depending on the machine vendor. As if to illustrate this, a particularly baffled employee exclaimed, “That’s Wheat???!!!” upon the sight of the hue in the previous text file.) In this version, programmers were introduced to the aforementioned “papaya whip” and “lemon chiffon,” as well as other loftily-named hues like “blanched almond” and “peach puff.”
Raveling drew these names from an unsurprising source: the (now-defunct) paint company Sinclair Paints. It was an arbitrary move; after failing to receive sanctions from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which issued standards for Web color properties, Raveling decided to take matters into his own hands. He calibrated the colors for his own HP monitor. “Nuts to ANSI & ‘ANSI standards,’” he complained.
MIT
Colors included in John C. Thomas’s RGB file. Thomas added bold shades, adopting names from Crayola.
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Later that year, X11 gained a set of bolder colors thanks to another programmer, John C. Thomas. Just as Raveling’s update tweaked shades to assuage user confusion, Thomas’s addressed the following written objection from coworker Bruce Schuchardt in 1989:
“[I] am still shocked and horrified by the default colors in the rgb database. The ‘pink’ color in particular looks like the flesh-tone of someone who has been puking for several hours and would really rather get a bullet in the head than go on living.”
Thomas agreed. Frustrated with inconsistent displays, he started to find it futile to standardize color names. In response, he stated in an e-mail that he “sat down one evening with the handiest standard of subjective color names, a box of 72 Crayola crayons.” That birthed “aquamarine,” “orchid,” and “salmon,” to name a few.
By 2001, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first working draft of the CSS 3 Color Module that would include the colors. In light of evolving technologies, the colors had fallen out of use, but the W3C claimed the goal was to “codify current practices.” Every browser supported the colors at this point, consequently, the W3C had been using them in compatibility tests. Incorporating the colors into CSS, then, would prevent sites from breaking.
“It was like a backwards-compatibility thing. They thought, ‘We’ve accidentally been doing this, so we might as well just not break it,’” Sexton told Ars.
Backlash ensued. The color database had been subjected to the whims of so many different programmers that it became deeply disorganized, leading some to argue it had no place in CSS. Critics attacked its naming scheme: “dark gray” was lighter than “gray”; there was a “medium violet red” but no “violet red”; “light goldenrod yellow” had no corresponding “goldenrod yellow.” In total 17 colors had dark versions, but only 13 had light ones. Color distribution was also uneven, skewing toward reds and greens and away from blues.
Perhaps the most vehement denunciation comes from a 2002 e-mail written by programmer Steven Pemberton: “The X11 colour names are an abomination that should have been stifled at birth, and adding them to CSS is a blemish on the otherwise excellent design of CSS. To say that the X11 colour set and their names have been ‘designed’ is an insult to the word ‘design.’ It is just a mess.”
Another point of contention was cultural exclusion. Some programmers took umbrage at the region-centric nature of names like “dodger blue” and the potential racial undertones of “navajo white” (from Sinclair Paints) and “indian red” (from Crayola, though the crayon has since been renamed in response to the same concerns). Others considered the English-only names alienating.
“I’m not a native English speaker. Imagine my reaction the first time I saw the ‘gainsboro’ color or ‘papaya whip,’” Daniel Glazman, co-chairman of the CSS Working Group, told Ars.
Ostensibly, these repercussions could have been prevented. In the ‘80s, X system programmers had the option to identify colors the way many developers do today: with a hexadecimal value (AKA hex value, e.g., #FFFF00) or an RGB color code (e.g., 255,255,0). These options allow a greater degree of choice and precision, and they’re based on schematic, objective, globally legible systems. Why weren’t they used in the first place?
“It was a recognition that almost nobody likes using the numeric values. People don’t think in terms of F5B as a particular shade of color. Using a name is more natural,” said Jim Fulton, a student at MIT at the time of X’s creation and manager of Raveling’s and Thomas’s files. However, he conceded, “Not every idea works out well.”
An unexpected source for color inspiration…
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In 2014, however, an unexpected event cast the color list in a more favorable light: a new shade. “Rebecca purple,” was introduced to honor the life of Rebecca Meyer, the daughter of Eric Meyer, a respected programmer and CSS writer. Rebecca died of brain cancer at the age of six; the hue (#663399) was chosen to reflect her favorite color. (A few developers opposed the addition, maintaining that a set of standards was no place for an emotional tribute. They were dismissed as curmudgeons.)
Still, the general consensus is that these colors’ utility is minimal; they’re best reserved as placeholders (it’s easier to type “tomato” than “#FF6347” when you need a color quickly), for beginner-level design projects, or as the butt of a joke.
“I view it with amusement that the colors seem to have migrated into CSS. I just laugh at it,” Fulton told Ars. “I think if someone were to go and crawl over the top 100 or top 1,000 sites and take a look at how various colors are specified, I’m willing to bet you’d still find close to zero percent using color names beyond ‘white’ or ‘black.’”
“If I’m doing an example to show people how to use an editor or a framework, I use hex values like #C0FFEE or #BADA55. It’s about as useful to use #C0FFEE as it is to use ‘papaya whip,’” Sexton added.
Should the colors have been left without standard names then, sparing the development community from a series of angry e-mails and micro-controversies? According to Fulton, probably. Then again, as programmers navigated the uncharted territory of color-displaying GUIs in the ‘80s, it was only natural to experiment any way they knew how.
“At the time, we were dealing with, in some ways, the very beginnings of the graphical home-computer industry,” he said. “For color devices especially, this was the very beginning.”
Becoming a freelance web designer is a common dream among many designers, although it takes quite a bit of talent, business savvy, commitment, and time. With all there is to consider when becoming self-employed, one can become overwhelmed — enough to deter themselves from trying at all.
Realizing many readers probably already have a head-start into the world of professional and freelance web design, this post is meant to act as not only a step-by-step guide, but also as a checklist for those who have already started their career. Hopefully this guide can cover all aspects of becoming a professional and freelance web designer, from business aspect and working with clients, to creating an effective portfolio and advertising one’s work.
1. Do the Necessary Research
The absolute first step into any freelancing career is to do the needed research ahead of time. Freelancing is a huge life and career change, and one needs to look into exactly how it will change life before diving in.
RESEARCH THE COSTS
Making money on one’s own terms sounds incredibly appealing, until the realization comes that it’s a lot less money than working at a company (at first, at least). Below is just a short list of expenses to consider. Make sure they are covered when venturing into a freelancing lifestyle.
Domain name and hosting services
Stationery, Business Cards, and other marketing material
Needed software
A desk space and supplies
Subscriptions to stock photo sites and other forms of resources
On top of that, consider basic living expenses and additional emergency or living money. At this point, a formal budget is not needed, but it’s a very smart idea to go over the basic numbers of starting a freelancing business, and maintaining it.
TAXES & INSURANCE
While most aspiring freelancers will slowly transition into the lifestyle, opposed to quitting their day job cold turkey, it is important to look into taxing information, insurance, and other assets that will be changed with self-employment. Because local laws and personal circumstances can vary so significantly, new designers should research this area on their own.
RESEARCH THE TIME
A more specific schedule can be setup later, but it’s a good idea to look into the time requirement for work each day, per week, and even per month to handle X amount of clients. For some, the time needed to be invested in this type of career path is not currently available.
Consider current social or family happenings, career responsibilities, and for some — even school. If it is not a good time in life to change focus, it may not be a good time to start freelancing full-time. Sometimes it is appropriate to put dreams on hold. With that being said, set a realistic date to begin a true freelancing lifestyle, whether that means just easing into it now, or setting a time in the future to go full-time.
If all consideration is put into place, the idea is well researched, then it can be time to start a freelance web design career! Below are the remaining steps to take.
2. Become a Brand
There are many differences between a young freelance web designer just trying to get by, and a successful freelance web designer with their business and future in mind. One of those differences is that successful freelance designers understand, and pay close attention, to branding.
Branding a business, even if only a one person operation, can do a lot of things in terms of the business’s sucess. A good brand builds credibility, client loyalty, delivers a target message to clients and other businesses, and even aids in marketing strategy.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The name of a freelancing business can signify a lot, and most designers just choose to use their full name as the brand name. This is fine, but another option is to use a specialized brand name. Depending on the future plans of the business, it is smart to think closer about an official name.
If one plans on turning an individual freelancing business into a firm one day, a name other than the designer’s given name may be more appropriate. Also, a specialized brand name may be more memorable than the designer’s given name, and the posibilities are then endless as far as finding an SEO friendly name, or a name that gives off a portrayal of the business it represents.
On the other end of the spectrum, it’s easy to see the benefits of using a given name as a business name. Using a designer’s given name is always original, and something uniquely personal to the designer. Really, both can be successful decisions, but it is a decision that is often times taken too lightly. The way the brand is further marketed depends largely on this decision.
You should notice that designers who chose a specialized name for their brand often call themselves a studio. This gives the impression that they are a bigger business; a more formal organization. The portfolios with given names, though, provide a more personal appeal — something many clients look for. This often gives them more of the true freelancer feel.
Depending on how a designer wants to operate their business, the clients they want to attract, and based on the future goals of the business, the final decision of the freelancing business name can have many possibilities.
LOGO
After the official brand name is decided, it’s time to start creating a logo around it. Many beginner designers don’t understand the importance a logo has in a brand, or even how important a brand is in itself. Opposed to creating a quick logo in the process of designing a portfolio template, a logo should be made separately and with the utmost consideration.
Because these designers, and so many more, took the extra time to create a well-branded and effective logo, they have the opportunity to expand the logo design to stationery, business cards, advertisements, and more. Not to mention, these logos serve the origial purpose of logo design — to create a brand, build business loyalty, and create an image that aids in recognition.
A designer will want to create a logo that represents their design style, and that will attract a client that is looking for that type of web design. To create a great logo, read up on logo design principles, tutorials, and logo design processes.
AN ELEVATOR PITCH
There is a lot more to being a successful freelance web designer than just being good at web design. Any sort of freelancer has to be an entrepreneur as well. Rule #1 for entrepreneurship: create an elevator pitch.
For those that don’t know what an elevator pitch it, it is a premeditated, well thought-out introduction to one’s services or a person’s business as a whole. Let’s take a look at a better definition. Excuse the use of Wikipedia for a professional reference, but Wikipedia’s definition of an elevator pitch is just about perfect for the freelance web designer:
An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words).
… A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, policy-makers, job seekers (web designers and freelancers), and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly. — Elevator pitch, Wikipedia
Take the time to create an elevator pitch for a freelancing business. For a freelance web designer, it can venture beyond the traditional use of a speech in an elevator, to the introduction to a portfolio, the about page, or as an introduction to an application for a freelancing position.
Many marketing gurus leave the assumption that the creation of an elevator speech for a business will increase the client list dramatically. Usually, this isn’t the case — at least not directly. What it will do though is still quite useful:
Save the designer countless hours in coming up with a smart introduction over and over again.
Create a professional atmosphere for a portfolio, or whereever it is used.
An elevator speech will make sure that any new introductions don’t leave out vital information about the services or freelancing business.
The following is an example of an excellent elevator pitch for a 45royale web design studio.
45royale is an enthusiastic web design studio located in the bustling metropolis of Canton, Georgia. We promote web standards and bring energy and commitment to our work every single day. — 45royale Inc.
The above is a strong example for a small, yet established business. Freelancing can use the same principle, but with a more personal approach:
Hi there, my name’s Brian Wilkins and I am a web designer/front-end developer living outside Boston, Massachusetts. I currently work at Reelpoint, an online design and marketing firm. I build clean and functional interfaces. With a hunger to constantly grow and evolve as a designer, I have a genuine passion for art, typography, design, technology and creative thinking. — BrianWilkins.net
That detailed elevator pitch can be seen on his about page, telling potential clients exactly what he does. On the front page, as part of his portfolio design, he includes a much shorter, but equally effective pitch:
I’m a web designer that creates clean and modern content for the world wide web.
Taking the time to create an elevator pitch can help launch a freelance career through the use of business tactics. Below are some further resources for creating a great elevator pitch.
The last thing to do is create an overall style for the freelancing business. Fortunately, most of this is accomplished by the above several factors. The overall style, colors, textures, and even how a designer presents one’s self should reflect the style of work a designer completes.
To promote consistency throughout the life of the freelancing business, though, designers need to look at branding in a more broad sense when first starting out. Creating a color scheme, design style, and other overall design guidelines based off of the logo design, and information presented in the elevator pitch. Then, stick to the brand as the freelancing business progresses.
3. Create a Portfolio Website
Step number three is an obvious one — create a portfolio website. However, it deserves a decent overview and closer look because we as designers are our own worst clients. Many new freelancers, or anyone just entering the web design world of business, will open Photoshop and start grinding away. Instead, think about what a portfolio can actually do.
A mediocre portfolio will have a great design, and show off a designer’s past works. However, an excellent portfolio will do the following things:
Reflect and grow a designer’s brand.
Show a client not only what a designer can do, but what the designer can do for them.
Show great talent, but also business savvy and professionalism.
Intrigue potential clients strongly enough so that they stay on the website long enough to make contact with the designer.
Provide a user-friendly interface for the client (who very well may not be so Internet or design savvy).
Keep all of this in mind during the design process of a web design portfolio. Make note that a designer’s portfolio has to be their best work. Furthermore, consider the following items when creating, or even modifying a design portfolio.
CONSIDER A 1-PAGE PORTFOLIO
It’s called direct response marketing, and it’s proven to be one of the most effective forms of marketing to get the most sales. It’s bascially a method that involves making a huge impact in the most direct way possible. In the world of web design, this means an incredibily effective and amazing portfolio — but in only one page.
Of course, this isn’t a great method for everyone, especially those who offer more than just basic web design services. However, without a one-page design, a designer can still take use of this knowledge by applying more direct-response marketing to their portfolio. This may mean simplifying it, puting the contact form on the front page, and merging similar pages together.
USE A CONTACT FORM
Provide a traditional email address and other information, but most importantly, include an email form. It makes things easier for the potential client to get ahold of the designer, even if only to ask for more information. This then provides further opportunity for the designer to sell their work.
The form above (Komodomedia) is a perfect example because it gives the visitor various options for the form, rather than just requesting a quote. This designer has made themselves approachable, which is an excellent way to gain more clients. Also, above the form, there are other ways to contact the designer, which may be suitable for different visitors.
MAKE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS NOTICEABLE
Make sure the most important components of a portfolio design are out in the open and easy to use and find. For most, this means the contact form and information, the portfolio pieces, and the logo.
A perfect example is Alexandru Cohaniuc’s portfolio. The biggest text on the page is “Portfolio”, “Hi, I’m Alex”, and “Contact.” Right above the word “Portfolio” is the logo, strategically placed in the top left.
4. Build Legal Documents
To make things really official, a designer has to create some legal documents. These can be reused for each client, but must be made initially to deal with potential problems later.
CONTRACT
A contract is a necessity for a freelancer of any sort. It will help protect the designer and the client, as well as outline some rules and guidelines. For more information on how to create a freelance contract, check out the resources below.
In addition, one can hire a technical writer or other writing professional to do the job.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
Terms and conditions are a more in-depth view of the rules between the web deigner and the client. Again, one can hire someone to write a terms and agreement paper for them, otherwise here is a great template: Terms and Conditions Template.
COPYRIGHT AGREEMENT
A third needed agreement is a separate copyright agreement. Designers are always at risk for work being stolen and miscredited. A copyright agreement is a way to protect that work, and a way to set further rules for who can use the work.
Because copyright law can vary among different countries, we won’t get much into it here. It is important, though, to research copyright law, know one’s own rights, and apply it to one’s own circumstances.
5. Find a Starting Wage & Budget
Deciding on a personal starting wage is difficult, because we never truly know how much to pay ourselves. As anyone can guess, someone just starting out in freelancing won’t be making much. A new designer just has to make sure they have basic living expenses paid, and a bit of cusion room for emergency costs or budget mishaps.
PROS AND CONS OF FIXED-PRICED PROJECTS
A fixed-priced project is one where the designer and client agree on an overall cost for a design project ahead of time, and the payment is completely independent of how long it takes the designer to complete. Below are some pros and cons of using this method.
Pros:
These types of project can be easier to apply to a monthly budget.
Designer’s with efficient methods to save time during a project won’t be unfairly punished with a low cost.
It is easy to see how many projects per month need to be completed to determine profits and budget handling.
Cons:
It is much more difficult to determine a fixed-price for a project before actually completing it.
Sometimes designers are underpaid using this method.
Payment doesn’t come at regular intervals, which may not be suitable for all lifestyles.
PROS AND CONS OF HOURLY WAGE WORK
While hourly work may be what we’re all used to, there can be some equal pros and cons to consider when thinking about this payment system as a freelancer.
Pros:
Budgeting is easier for those that require a daily or weekly budget.
It is harder to become under or over paid for a project.
It is much easier to explain to the client the final cost of a project.
Cons:
It is hard to determine our own hourly rate based on the judgement of our own skills.
It is more difficult to work with a monthly budget.
Timesheets need to be filled out and there needs to be an effective way to transfer timesheets back and forth between the designer and client.
LessAccounting.com Less Accounting is an all-in-one money managment application that will let one connect to bank accounts, and even let a freelancer invite a personal accountant login to help watch money. In addition, LessAccounting also features all the other basic money management needs for freelancers.
Mint.com Mint may not be made for freelancers specifically, but it is one of the best tools out there for taking control of one’s own money. This is perfect for new business owners that may be low on money, and need to pay extra attention to their cash flow.
Tickspot.com Tick is a time management tool aimed at organizing time so that freelancers can hit their budgets. It’s a great tool that breaks up time so a freelancer can enter hours worked, hourly pay rate, project pay rate, and more.
SlimTimer.com Slimtimer is similar to tick, in that it is a time and budget management tool. One can create tasks, time their own work, run reports, and manage their money overall more efficiently.
SimplyBill.com SimplyBill is a very simple invoicing tool to help effectively keep track of clients, their invoices, and to send invoices out.
FreshBooks.com Freshbooks is a great invoicing tool for freelancers with a lot of versatility to meet anyone’s needs. Best of all, it’s free up to three clients, so this gives designers plenty of time to decide if FreshBooks is right for them.
Intuit By the creators of QuickBooks, Intuit is a free alternative invoicing system that is perfect for designers just starting out that need to save that extra bit of cash.
FreeAgentCentral.com FreeAgent allows a freelancer to manage all their invoices, and will even tell the freelancer what they owe the tax man.
6. Create a Résume
Without a strong portfolio just yet, new freelance web designers need to rely on a strong résume. This is a designer’s true chance to flaunt their skills in full detail. Most of us learned how to create a résume back in high school, and another good portion of us probably still hold on to our most recent one today. When venturing into a new freelance web design career, though, it’s time to tweak it to meet the needs of this new career path.
Below are some resources for creating the perfect résume for web designers and freelancers.
For a newly created web design freelance portfolio, providing a download link to a designer’s full résume may be just what the client is looking for.
7. Find “Portfolio Building” Clients
Now that just about everything is set up, it’s time to take action. Finding the first few clients is always tough, because nobody wants to hire a nobody. It may be near impossible to find good, well-paying clients yet, so sit tight and take on the first few “portfolio building” clients.
CONSIDER OFFERING FREE SERVICES Image source: On the Block
Working for free is never fun, but it may be necessary. Do some volunteer work for a church or another non-profit/low budget organization. These services obviously aren’t hard to sell; just put an ad up for yourself up on Craigslist or in freelance and web design forums.
When creating an ad to offer free services, be sure to avoid failure. This means setting limits — no designer wants to spend a month on a complicated job making no money. Offer only PSD templates, 1-page websites, or something of the like.
Of course, this isn’t an option for everybody because we all don’t have the time, nor the patience to do a free job. If that is the case, explore some options below to get paying clients that will gladly deal with a new designer.
ADVERTISE LOCALLY
Put up fliers or an ad in the local newspaper to gain some local recognition. Not every potential client knows where to look online for web design services, and it may very well be that many are looking locally. Otherwise, they’re only finding top Google-ranked web design businesses that they can’t afford.
If a new designer comes to them offering cheaper services, whether in the form of a newspaper ad, a flier at a grocery store, or through word-of-mouth via friends and family, they’ll be very happy to hire.
OFFER FREEBIES OR SELL TEMPLATES
One more option requires no actual clients at all. Many designers choose to make free templates in their spare time, and use them to advertise their services, show off what they can do, and in some instances, sell them for some residual income.
Over at ThemeForest, Collis has sold a PSD template at $10 — 168 times. This means over a thousand dollars in his pocket, and a great portfolio piece to show off.
Unless one makes spewing out free or cheap templates, WordPress Themes, or scripts their full-time business, this isn’t going to be a great option for making monthly living expenses. It is however, a great alternative to 1) get a designer to create some portfolio pieces, 2) get the designer’s name out in the community, and 3) let the designer make a bit of extra cash.
However, it is important to try a few real clients as well, for the business experience.
THEN WHAT?
After finding a few clients, keep these few things in mind.
Create a personal (yet professional) connection between the first few clients. This may welcome great testimonials and word-of-mouth clients.
Offer variety in your services when starting out. For example, one may want to try logo design, web design, and basic coding. Later on, when trying to add a new service to the freelancing business, this will make for a much easier transition.
Just because new designers have to deal with low (or no) wages, doesn’t mean they should offer low-quality work. Put in the hours and create something great. Keep in mind that there is more to the first few projects than just the money.
TOOLS FOR CLIENT MANAGEMENT
BaseCamp BaseCamp is a very popular project managment tool for freelancers. With BaseCamp, a freelancer can share files, set deadlines, assign tasks, organize feedback, and more.
Zoho Writer Essentially, Zoho Writer is an online word processer. In addition to being that though, it is aimed at freelancers, with the ability to share documents and collaborate with clients in various ways.
Big Contacts Big contacts is an online contacts solution to help share files, email, have meetings, send notes, and more between the freelancer and client.
8. Create (and Stick to) a Schedule
A huge part of freelancing is finding a schedule that fits the designer’s needs, and allows the designer to get the necssary work done on time. It is a step in itself to becoming a professional freelance web designer.
FIND THE HOURS NECESSARY
To find a schedule, a designer needs to find how much time it actually takes them to do the tasks at hand. A freelancer has to ask themselves, “How much time does it take to create a simple PSD template, and then how long does it take to code it?” Depending on the skill sets of individual designers, this length of time can greatly change. However, work from previous clients or the creation of sample templates can give a rough estimate.
After determing how long the workflow takes, decide on a daily hourly input for work — and work only.
A DAILY SCHEDULE
A general daily schedule depends greatly on each designer’s personal lifestyle, and is something that needs to be predetermined in order to be successful. After a designer realizes how much time it takes daily to get the required amount of work done, he or she should create a daily schedule for themsleves.
A daily schedule will help aid the designer to stay on track, instead of constantly checking email, jumping back and forth between projects, or ignoring client work altogether.
A WEEKLY & MONTHLY SCHEDULE
On top of a daily schedule, freelance professionals should also make a weekly and monthly calendar. A broader calendar can be used to keep track of deadlines and plan out longer projects.
Whether it be a calendar hanging on the wall or a web-based calendar like below, make sure to keep track of deadlines, payment schedules, and other checkmarks along the way of a project.
FIND THE MOTIVATION
Anyone can see the benefits of a steady schedule, but the hardest part for most may be staying motivated to keep to it. Below are some things to keep in mind if the urge to break a preset schedule creeps up.
Do the same specific thing during work at the same time every day. For example, check email first thing in the morning, then start directly on client work.
For those who have already quit their day jobs to pursue this career: Wake up at the same time everyday. If it means sleeping in a few extra hours than the traditional worker, that’s fine. However, having a constantly altering start to the day can mess up a schedule, even if things are done in the same order during wake time.
Write a to-do list in the morning of items that need to be addressed that day.
Use a calendar and daily planner to keep track of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks.
A FEW TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Dejal Timeout Quite the opposite of most time managment software, this application actually tells you when to stop working. With timed breaks, this tool can help a freelancer have an overall more relaxing career.
Google Calendar Google Calendar is a great option for those that use Google’s other tools a lot, in that it will be all in the same place. Like many of Google’s other tools, it is free, versatile, and very useful.
Ta-da List Ta-da List is an easy to-do list tool hosted online for convenience. It is easy to create lists for one’s own use, or for others.
9. Create a Business Plan
One of the most boring and tedious tasks one can do is create a business plan. Most might feel free to skip this step, but wait a moment and consider the benefits (and assurances) of taking the time to create one.
Benefits of a Professional Business Plan:
Creates a real business in the designer’s eyes, and in the client’s eye.
A business plan can be used in tricky legal situations, to differ the business from just a hobby.
Identifies future plans, direction, and goals for the business.
Keeps the designer, as a business owner, on track with the development of the business.
Upgrades the simple monthly budget to a long-term financial structure.
Not all designers are marketing experts, but a bit of knowledge about how to gain recognition in the freelance web design world is necessary to be successful. Designers should do research on marketing, and create a long-term plan for the growth of their portfolio and their reputation as a freelance designer.
EXPAND WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Use social networking sites to not only promote a portfolio, but also to promote new designs and projects. In addition, one can use Twitter, or something similar to get valuable feedback on current projects. For more ideas on how to get the most out of Twitter as a web designer, take a look at Ramsay’s post: 5 Simple Ways Twitter Can Make You a Better Web Designer.
Also, those who are active within social media communities benefit far more than those who use them for only self-promotion. Create a community, find other designers, and even discover some interesting finds along the way. Take the time to enjoy social media websites, while gaining recognition as a web designer.
GET RECOGNIZED IN A CROWD OF APPLICANTS
Knowing where to look for more work is necessary when depending on that work for a decent income. However, with thousands of freelancers floating around in forums, job boards, and other sources of possible clients, getting noticed can be some hard work — especially when others (who may be doing it for just a hobby) are willing to offer their services extremely cheap.
To get noticed by clients and win a job, follow a few of these simple rules.
Don’t apply to jobs that are more than a few days old — chances are they’ve been filled, and it’s really a waste of time.
Use multiple job board websites and forums to have a wider range of possibilites.
Be a good designer. This sounds like a dumb tip, but often times clients get application for web designers that either 1) aren’t good at design or 2) have designs that show no unique abililty and are very ordinary.
Don’t apply for jobs that you don’t qualify. Client’s can’t stand hearing, “I haven’t done a design for the style you’re looking for, but I’ve been creating websites for X years and could probably do it.” The next designer that comes to them with a decent portfolio proving they can meet the client’s needs is going to get the job instead.
This shouldn’t even have to be said, but sadly, it does: Capitalize your sentences, use correct grammar, and don’t make spelling mistakes when applying for a freelance job.
As for the best tip of all — don’t sell work cheaper than it needs to be just to gain a client. If a client can’t see why a logo design costs $200 when the kid that applied the day before is offering the same service for $20, then it’s really their own loss. Somtimes it’s worth losing jobs, and that’s a part of the difficulty when just starting out.
11. Blog often, but pay attention to the quality of your posts
Blogs are great for improving search engine rank and gaining popularity in the web design community. Whether designers have a lot of time or barely enough, a blog showcasing interesting finds or discussing anything related to the web design or the freelancing profession can gain an audience fast.
Below are just a few websites that use blogs to promote their general careers as freelance web designers.
WellMedicated.com really doesn’t update that often — only about once every two months — but it’s still a well respected design blog in the community. Andrew Lindstrom is a freelance web designer, and spends most of his focus on that. However, with a great following on his blog, he can easily gain traffic to his web design portfolio through his sidebar and about page.
In a recent interview of Steven Snell of Vandelay Design, Steven discussed how the popular Vandelay Design Blog was indeed intended to bring more traffic and clients to the Vandelay Design portfolio. Well, that mission was very successful, and the blog changed direction to fulfill the wants of a different audience, as a full-time design blog.
Now, it is updated every few days and it’s goal is no longer to bring portfolio traffic. However, with a link to the portfolio and further information about the web design business, there is no doubt it still does.
Chris Spooner’s blogging experience started with just some simple experimentation, and as a place for him to simply explore and share. However, the blog soon gained a lot of popularity, and now does great work in promoting his portfolio as well.
So the lesson to be learned is, no matter what reason a designer has to start a blog, it can be a great source for traffic and a way to gain recognition in the community. Not to mention, the additional income from selling advertising spaces.
12. Get into the Community of Freelance Web Designers
Don’t be a freelancing loner. Getting involved in the community and meet other web designers and freelancing professionals to grow as a designer.
Make contacts within the community by blogging, joining a design network like Envato, and using forums. One could also donate freebies to larger communities, or try to do guest posts.
Below are just a few ways gaining a strong social network in the community can help a freelance web designer.
It creates a support group. Guessing that many freelance web designers don’t have many offline friends or family that do the same thing for a living, having an online support group for your field of interest can be very beneficial. Get into the web design community to share, rant, rave, and get feedback as a designer.
Learn new things. Following a blog regularly, being active in social networking sites, and participating in forums is a great way to improve your current abilities, and expand horizons. Instead of grinding away at what needs to get done or what needs to be learned for a current project, being a part of a community will help you to explore new things and find inspiration.
Become an authority and let the clients come. Being the best designer in the world doesn’t make that designer an authority figure. As skills and wisdom improve, others in the web design community will reference a designer’s work, portfoio, and services for them.
ATTEND CONFERENCES AND OTHER FACE-TO-FACE EVENTS
Attending various web design and other conferences for webmasters is not only a great way to network with other designers, but also a great way to learn new things and keep up with the latest trends. Get to some conferences, and become a real person, rather than just an online presence.
Below are just a few popular conferences within the community.
AnEventApart.com An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day conference for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference you’ve been waiting for.
Carsonified For Web Designers, Creatives and anyone who cares about web design.
Web Design World Since 1997, we’ve helped thousands of Web designers learn what they need to know to make better web sites, manage web projects, and get home at a decent hour.
As a freelancer, we have the ultimate schedule for attending these events, and it can be easier than for others to gather the funds. In order to truly succeed, freelance web designers should attend these events to socialize, learn, and grow their freelancing web design career.
13. Reinvest the Income
It takes money to make money, so when starting out, reinvest some of the income made back into the freelancing business. It’s tempting to pay off bills or buy something nice once it can be afforded, but dedicate a certain percentage to the business’s growth.
Among the many things that need to be maintained for a freelancing business are software upgrades, hosting and domain renewals, desk space upgrades, stationery, and more. In addition to maintinence items, though, some of the income may be turned into a luxury web design item — for fun and for work.
Figure how much of the income is actually needed for living expenses, and use either all of the remaining profit, or a strong percentage of the profit to go back into the business.
14. Get a Professional Space
Finding a place to do work may help new freelancers differ play time from work time. On another note, a good workspace is needed to keep organized and create an effective workflow. Below are two great workspaces that are effective and fun, both held as a home office.
The workspace of Ben Mautner provides a lot of worspace to get things done, with plenty of inspiration handing on the walls as well.
Jay Hilgert’s office space is is clean, neat, and trendy — but also has all the necessary equipment.
Beyond a home office’s benefit of staying organized and aiding in getting some work done, it can make anyone finally feel like a true professional freelance web designer. You may want to take a look at the workstations of other designers as well.
15. Keep Learning New Tricks
As the final stage of the transformation comes into completion, there is only one more thing that needs to be done to create and maintain the status of a professional, freelance web design career. That final step is to keep learning. Designers should always be discovering new practices, techniques, standards for client work — and also tweaking their own business along the way.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this walkthrough can help most web designers just starting out in freelancing go down the correct path. Freelancing in the web design niche is an exciting and freedom-filled career path, although it requires a mix between design, development, and entrepreneurship. Finding a good grasp of all three can only mean success as a freelance web designer.
Welcome to the wtg guide for How to Search All of Craigslist. Craigslist is a tool designed for finding local services and items for sale. In other words, it limits your searches to one territory at a time. However, there are a number of tools out there that can cast a wider net. Using the following solutions will give you the chance to search statewide, nationwide, or worldwide.
Although there are a few web-based Craigslist search engines out there, Onecraigs is our favorite for its adherence to the simplistic, lightweight design of Craigslist itself. It has a search bar that looks through listings in every Craigslist city in the US, giving you immediate access to a wider pool of potential buyers and sellers than the main Craigslist search options. If that’s a little too expansive for your tastes though, there are also options to search Craigslist by state. All you need do is scroll down, select the state you want to search in and then input what you’re looking for in the search bar.
You’ll need to scroll past a few sponsored results on each page, but the tool is entirely free to use, loads quickly, and responds even quicker once you’ve made a search. The results are detailed enough to give you a basic, text run-down of what’s on offer, as well as a URL link directly to the original advert. If you’re searching nationwide, that can also be a great indicator of where your results come from.
If you don’t live in the U.S. or want to search a wider array of online classifieds, Search Tempest offers everything but the kitchen sink. It can search Craigslist in its entirety, as well as Ebay auctions, and Amazon Marketplace listings. You can customize your search by site, city, and distance from any particular zip code, or you can simply search the entire world.
The scope of Search Tempest can be a little intimidating and unless you want to pay international shipping on items, you are going to want to limit where you search, but for those that want to cast the broadest net possible, Search Tempest can do it.
CPlus for Craigslist is a great Craigslist search tool for iOS that gives you the option to search in as many cities and territories as you want all at once and is one of a few that is officially licensed by Craigslist. It also lets you set up search alerts, so if you’re looking for something nationwide over a period of time, it can automatically inform you if what you’re after becomes available. If you expect to make regular purchases, you can even input your favorite products or types of adverts to be notified whenever new ones are posted.
If you’re not sure how wide to set your search, CPlus for Craigslist has expansive geo-location support. That makes it quick and easy to find nearby cities that might have what you’re looking for. Once you’ve begun your search, there are advanced filtering and sorting systems to make parsing through the results that much easier.
The app is entirely free to use, although there are advanced features you can pay for if you wish. For $1.99 you can enhance the alert feature, while the pro version unlocks the ability to use multiple Craigslist accounts and to post more often.
If you’re using an Android device and want to search across broad swathes of Craigslist or a variety of other online classified sites and services, CL Mobile is one of the best available. Although it defaults to searching around your current location or a chosen city, you can search multiple cities and territories at once. You can even expand your search to every city around the world if you so choose, and search across multiple marketplaces like Facebook or Hoobly, among others.
History of Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. cities in 2000, and now covers 70 countries.
In March 2008, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese became the first non-English languages Craigslist supported. As of August 9, 2012, over 700 cities and areas in 70 countries had Craigslist sites. Some Craigslist sites cover large regions instead of individual metropolitan areas—for example, the U.S. states of Delaware and Wyoming, the Colorado Western Slope, the California Gold Country, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are among the locations with their own Craigslist sites.
Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social, and trusting communal ways on the Internet via the WELL, MindVox and Usenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events. In early 1995, he began an email distribution list to friends. Most of the early postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to software and Internet developers living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Soon, word of mouth led to rapid growth. The number of subscribers and postings grew rapidly. There was no moderation and Newmark was surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings. People trying to get technical positions filled found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for. This led to the addition of a jobs category. User demand for more categories caused the list of categories to grow. The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June 1995 Majordomo had been installed and the mailing list “Craigslist” resumed operations. Community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark registered “craigslist.org”, and the website went live in 1996.
In the fall of 1998, the name “List Foundation” was introduced and Craigslist started transitioning to the use of this name. In April 1999, when Newmark learned of other organizations called “List Foundation”, the use of this name was dropped. Craigslist incorporated as a private for-profit company in 1999. Around the time of these events, Newmark realized the site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer and devote his full attention to running Craigslist. By April 2000, there were nine employees working out of Newmark’s San Francisco apartment.
In January 2000, current CEO Jim Buckmaster joined the company as lead programmer and CTO. Buckmaster contributed the site’s multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, flagging system, self-posting process, homepage design, personals categories, and best-of-Craigslist feature. He was promoted to CEO in November 2000.
The website expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four in 2001 and 2002 each, and 14 in 2003. On August 1, 2004, Craigslist began charging $25 to post job openings on the New York and Los Angeles pages. On the same day, a new section called “Gigs” was added, where low-cost and unpaid jobs can be posted free.
The site serves more than 20 billion page views per month, putting it in 72nd place overall among websites worldwide and 11th place overall among websites in the United States (per Alexa.com on June 28, 2016), with more than 49.4 million unique monthly visitors in the United States alone (per Compete.com on January 8, 2010). With more than 80 million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium.
The site receives more than 2 million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. Craigslist also dominates the U.S. rental housing market, with millions of new listings every month. The 23 largest U.S. cities listed on the Craigslist home page collectively receive more than 300,000 postings per day just in the “for sale” and “housing” sections as of October 2011. The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements to personal ads.
In 2009, Craigslist operated with a staff of 28 people.
Financials and ownership
In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist had little interest in maximizing profit, and instead preferred to help users find cars, apartments, jobs and dates.
Craigslist’s main source of revenue is paid job ads in select American cities. The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007.
On August 13, 2004, Newmark announced on his blog that auction giant eBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company from a former employee. Some fans of Craigslist expressed concern that this development would affect the site’s longtime non-commercial nature. As of April 2012, there have been no substantive changes to the usefulness, or the non-advertising nature of the site; neither banner ads, nor charges for a few services provided to businesses.
The company was believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster and eBay (the three board members). eBay owned approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.
In April 2008, eBay announced it was suing Craigslist to “safeguard its four-year financial investment”. eBay claimed that in January 2008, Craigslist executives took actions that “unfairly diluted eBay’s economic interest by more than 10%”. Craigslist filed a counter-suit in May 2008 to “remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition” that Craigslist claimed was constituted by eBay’s actions as Craigslist shareholders; the company claimed that it had used its minority stake to gain access to confidential information, which it then used as part of its competing service Kijiji.
On June 19, 2015, eBay Inc. announced that it would divest its stake back to Craigslist for an undisclosed amount, and settle its litigation with the company. The move came shortly before eBay’s planned spin-off of PayPal, and an effort to divest other units to focus on its core business.
The Swedish luxury marketplace website Jameslist.com received a lawsuit filed on July 11, 2012 which among unspecified damages also asked for a complete shutdown of Jameslist.com As a consequence, the young company was forced to rename to JamesEdition.
As of 2012, mashup sites such as padmapper.com and housingmaps.com were overlaying Craigslist data with Google Maps and adding their own search filters to improve usability. In June 2012, Craigslist changed its terms of service to disallow the practice. In July 2012, Craigslist filed a lawsuit against padmapper.com. Following the shutdown of Padmapper.com, some users complained that the service was useful to them and therefore should have remained intact.
Craigslist is a tool designed for finding local services and items for sale. In other words, it limits your searches to one territory at a time. However, there are a number of tools out there that can cast a wider net. Using the following solutions will give you the chance to search statewide, nationwide, or worldwide.
Although there are a few web-based Craigslist search engines out there, Onecraigs is our favorite for its adherence to the simplistic, lightweight design of Craigslist itself. It has a search bar that looks through listings in every Craigslist city in the US, giving you immediate access to a wider pool of potential buyers and sellers than the main Craigslist search options. If that’s a little too expansive for your tastes though, there are also options to search Craigslist by state. All you need do is scroll down, select the state you want to search in and then input what you’re looking for in the search bar.
You’ll need to scroll past a few sponsored results on each page, but the tool is entirely free to use, loads quickly, and responds even quicker once you’ve made a search. The results are detailed enough to give you a basic, text run-down of what’s on offer, as well as a URL link directly to the original advert. If you’re searching nationwide, that can also be a great indicator of where your results come from.
If you don’t live in the U.S. or want to search a wider array of online classifieds, Search Tempest offers everything but the kitchen sink. It can search Craigslist in its entirety, as well as Ebay auctions, and Amazon Marketplace listings. You can customize your search by site, city, and distance from any particular zip code, or you can simply search the entire world.
The scope of Search Tempest can be a little intimidating and unless you want to pay international shipping on items, you are going to want to limit where you search, but for those that want to cast the broadest net possible, Search Tempest can do it.
CPlus for Craigslist is a great Craigslist search tool for iOS that gives you the option to search in as many cities and territories as you want all at once and is one of a few that is officially licensed by Craigslist. It also lets you set up search alerts, so if you’re looking for something nationwide over a period of time, it can automatically inform you if what you’re after becomes available. If you expect to make regular purchases, you can even input your favorite products or types of adverts to be notified whenever new ones are posted.
If you’re not sure how wide to set your search, CPlus for Craigslist has expansive geo-location support. That makes it quick and easy to find nearby cities that might have what you’re looking for. Once you’ve begun your search, there are advanced filtering and sorting systems to make parsing through the results that much easier.
The app is entirely free to use, although there are advanced features you can pay for if you wish. For $1.99 you can enhance the alert feature, while the pro version unlocks the ability to use multiple Craigslist accounts and to post more often.
If you’re using an Android device and want to search across broad swathes of Craigslist or a variety of other online classified sites and services, CL Mobile is one of the best available. Although it defaults to searching around your current location or a chosen city, you can search multiple cities and territories at once. You can even expand your search to every city around the world if you so choose, and search across multiple marketplaces like Facebook or Hoobly, among others.
History of Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. cities in 2000, and now covers 70 countries.
In March 2008, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese became the first non-English languages Craigslist supported. As of August 9, 2012, over 700 cities and areas in 70 countries had Craigslist sites. Some Craigslist sites cover large regions instead of individual metropolitan areas—for example, the U.S. states of Delaware and Wyoming, the Colorado Western Slope, the California Gold Country, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are among the locations with their own Craigslist sites.
Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social, and trusting communal ways on the Internet via the WELL, MindVox and Usenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events. In early 1995, he began an email distribution list to friends. Most of the early postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to software and Internet developers living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Soon, word of mouth led to rapid growth. The number of subscribers and postings grew rapidly. There was no moderation and Newmark was surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings. People trying to get technical positions filled found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for. This led to the addition of a jobs category. User demand for more categories caused the list of categories to grow. The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June 1995 Majordomo had been installed and the mailing list “Craigslist” resumed operations. Community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark registered “craigslist.org”, and the website went live in 1996.
In the fall of 1998, the name “List Foundation” was introduced and Craigslist started transitioning to the use of this name. In April 1999, when Newmark learned of other organizations called “List Foundation”, the use of this name was dropped. Craigslist incorporated as a private for-profit company in 1999.[8] Around the time of these events, Newmark realized the site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer and devote his full attention to running Craigslist. By April 2000, there were nine employees working out of Newmark’s San Francisco apartment.
In January 2000, current CEO Jim Buckmaster joined the company as lead programmer and CTO. Buckmaster contributed the site’s multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, flagging system, self-posting process, homepage design, personals categories, and best-of-Craigslist feature. He was promoted to CEO in November 2000.
The website expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four in 2001 and 2002 each, and 14 in 2003. On August 1, 2004, Craigslist began charging $25 to post job openings on the New York and Los Angeles pages. On the same day, a new section called “Gigs” was added, where low-cost and unpaid jobs can be posted free.
The site serves more than 20 billion page views per month, putting it in 72nd place overall among websites worldwide and 11th place overall among websites in the United States (per Alexa.com on June 28, 2016), with more than 49.4 million unique monthly visitors in the United States alone (per Compete.com on January 8, 2010). With more than 80 million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium.
The site receives more than 2 million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. Craigslist also dominates the U.S. rental housing market, with millions of new listings every month. The 23 largest U.S. cities listed on the Craigslist home page collectively receive more than 300,000 postings per day just in the “for sale” and “housing” sections as of October 2011. The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements to personal ads.
In 2009, Craigslist operated with a staff of 28 people.
Financials and ownership
In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist had little interest in maximizing profit, and instead preferred to help users find cars, apartments, jobs and dates.
Craigslist’s main source of revenue is paid job ads in select American cities. The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007.
On August 13, 2004, Newmark announced on his blog that auction giant eBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company from a former employee. Some fans of Craigslist expressed concern that this development would affect the site’s longtime non-commercial nature. As of April 2012, there have been no substantive changes to the usefulness, or the non-advertising nature of the site; neither banner ads, nor charges for a few services provided to businesses.
The company was believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster and eBay (the three board members). eBay owned approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.
In April 2008, eBay announced it was suing Craigslist to “safeguard its four-year financial investment”. eBay claimed that in January 2008, Craigslist executives took actions that “unfairly diluted eBay’s economic interest by more than 10%”. Craigslist filed a counter-suit in May 2008 to “remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition” that Craigslist claimed was constituted by eBay’s actions as Craigslist shareholders; the company claimed that it had used its minority stake to gain access to confidential information, which it then used as part of its competing service Kijiji.
On June 19, 2015, eBay Inc. announced that it would divest its stake back to Craigslist for an undisclosed amount, and settle its litigation with the company. The move came shortly before eBay’s planned spin-off of PayPal, and an effort to divest other units to focus on its core business.
The Swedish luxury marketplace website Jameslist.com received a lawsuit filed on July 11, 2012 which among unspecified damages also asked for a complete shutdown of Jameslist.com As a consequence, the young company was forced to rename to JamesEdition.
As of 2012, mashup sites such as padmapper.com and housingmaps.com were overlaying Craigslist data with Google Maps and adding their own search filters to improve usability. In June 2012, Craigslist changed its terms of service to disallow the practice. In July 2012, Craigslist filed a lawsuit against padmapper.com. Following the shutdown of Padmapper.com, some users complained that the service was useful to them and therefore should have remained intact.
When you’re building a new website or developing a new product, there are often several pieces that need to fall into place before you can make it officially available to the world.
A coming soon page is a valuable asset to have during these times, and not only as a stand-in for your soon-to-be store or the product you’ve got planned.
Properly used, these pre-launch pages can let you quickly gain traction, gather feedback, and start marketing while you prepare for your big launch.
What is a coming soon page and do you need one?
A coming soon page, also known as a pre-launch page, is a web page where you can direct people to learn more about your business or product, capture their interest, even their emails, and encourage them to help amplify your reach—all before your launch.
Unlike About, FAQ, and Contact pages, which are staples of many online businesses, a coming soon page’s greatest strength is that it isn’t a permanent page. It’s a placeholder.
As a temporary destination, a coming soon page offers you the flexibility to:
🏃♀️Start marketing before you launch: Since it’s a single page and not an entire website, you can “go to market” with a coming soon page in mere hours.
🥰Focus on building an audience: Without a product ready to sell, you can double down on building a following and email list that you can reach when it’s time to launch.
👂Get early feedback: Put your concept in front of would-be customers, gauge their interest, and use their feedback to inform how you build your idea.
A coming soon page isn’t necessary for every business, nor should it be an excuse to put off launching. If you’re building a t-shirt store or dropshipping business, for example, you can usually soft launch in a relatively short time and make improvements as you go.
For others, however, product development, raising money, or building your brand can push your intended launch date up to several months out. Instead of putting off marketing until you can officially open your digital doors to customers, a coming soon page can let you get a head start, build and promote in parallel, and ensure you have an audience to launch to.
Welcome to the wtg guide for the Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019.
The best point and shoot cameras gives creative individuals the best of both worlds: a camera that offers premium quality, encapsulated in a compact package.
Point and shoot cameras have simply been getting better and better each year, with all the major manufacturers muscling in on the action. Some of the best point and shoot cameras offer large full-frame sensors and have incredible zoom lenses that allow you to get closer to subjects than you’ve ever dreamed.
We’ve hand-picked a small group of the best of the best. Each point and shoot camera has strengths in varying areas.
Quick list of the Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019:
The seventh model in the hugely successful RX100 series, the Sony RX100 VII continues the fine tradition of an absolutely staggering camera. These cameras are great, there’s absolutely no question of that, packing incredible functionality into a truly tiny package. The Mark VII version can manage a whopping 90fps in new short Single Burst shooting mode; that, frankly, is ridiculous. Images look amazing too, the zoom range is impressive and the 4K video looks great. Definitely worth it for someone looking to have the epitome of the best point and shoot camera.
This iconic Leica blends classic good looks with modern trappings, from autofocus and built-in Wi-Fi through to a 3in touchscreen and a superb 3.68million-dot electronic viewfinder. The 24MP full-frame sensor allows it to easily capture better images than most other compacts. This is a no-compromise point-and-shoot camera that produces exquisite stills – definitely one for the purist.
Nikon’s largest superzoom went from big to ridiculous with this update. The Nikon Coolpix P1000 boasts a lens with a whopping equivalent focal range of 24-3000mm. Yes, 3000mm. At that distance, you can expect to pick out details on the surface of the moon (literally). You can monitor all this either with the high-resolution electronic viewfinder or the tilting LCD screen on the camera’s rear.
Still, Nikon has packed an impressive amount of tech in here. Including superzoom essentials such as Dual Detect VR (vibration reduction, compensating for camera shake), and the P1000 is undoubtedly unrivalled in superzoom stakes. This particular point and shoot camera comes with bundled accessories (tripod, remote, memory card, etc.). It would make an incredible gift.
Panasonic’s TZ range of travel-friendly superzoom cameras has long been hugely popular with roaming photographers. The Lumix TZ200 represents a great stride forward in terms of its zoom capability. Somehow, Panasonic has managed to fit a 24-360mm equivalent onto this tiny body. This gives the user a great deal of reach. It is a fantastically versatile imaging machine that can still fit in your pocket.
For an uncomplicated camera that does as much as possible, the Lumix TZ200 is a really solid choice. Whether you want to take simple reference photos for a creative project or high-quality prints that you’ll incorporate into your work: it’s ideal for both. That 1-inch sensor gives it real flexibility in all sorts of lighting conditions.
The well established Fujifilm X100F easily makes the cut. While pricier than the XF10, it’s hard to fault: a respected 24MP X-Trans CMOS sensor, a sharp, and a wide-aperture lens equivalent to 35mm. It’s a clever hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder are just the main highlights from a glittering spec sheet.
Whether you’re shooting Raw or JPEGs, the results are filled with detail, while a collection of Film Simulation modes give you the option to treat images at once with a range of effects reminiscent of the company’s popular film emulsions. If you need 4K video then it’s probably best to hang on for the XF10, or look towards the company’s X-T20 or X-T2 mirrorless bodies, but for everything else the X100F is golden – particular for street and documentary work.
The Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II is a rather sophisticated looking point-and-shoot camera, courtesy of its rather minimalist yet traditional appearance and streamlined controls, which have the benefit of keeping the body endearingly dinky. Despite this, it’s something of a beast under the bonnet, with a 1in sensor paired with a wide-angle 28-84mm equivalent lens, whose maximum aperture at wide-angle is a respectable f/2. There’s no viewfinder, but the 3in LCD on the rear also responds to touch, which again ensures that physical controls can be kept to a minimum. To sum up, this is a neat-looking, well-specced point and shoot compact camera that can produce vastly superior images to a camera phone – and it’s rather nice to look at and use.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
While the RX100 VI does cost more than most point-and-shoot buyers are willing to countenance, we couldn’t not include it here for the simple reason that this series represents pretty much the best the world of compact cameras has to offer. As the name implies, the VI is the sixth iteration in a series that Sony has been perfecting for many years, providing an exceptional blend of image quality and portability. While the VI has since been superseded by the VII, we reckon this model offers an outstanding balance of power and value for money.
Super-smooth 4K footage and dynamic burst shooting – it’s all here, and there are plenty of extra features that many cameras on this list don’t offer, such as the pop-up electronic viewfinder. And all this is housed in a camera small enough to pop into a pocket – provided you don’t mind a few of the controls being a little fiddly to use, it’s a boon for travel photography and videography alike. If you like the sound of the RX100 VI but are still put off by the cost, then check back through previous models in the RX100 series, as they are without exception very good, and most of them are popular enough to still be in production. And, alternatively, if you’ve got more cash to splash then definitely take a look at the RX100 VII.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
One of the most travel-friendly cameras in Fujifilm’s range, the XF10 is designed to be thrown into a bag or pocket and taken on adventures, weighing just 280g. It’s designed to make it easy to produce some of Fujifilm’s legendarily beautiful JPEGs straight out of camera, with the full suite of Film Simulation modes for a highly stylised look. There is a catch. It’s small, it’s pocketable and it has a big APS- C sensor to product superb images – but this has only been possible because it has a fixed focal length 28mm wide-angle lens rather than a zoom. Some users have complained of issues with autofocus speed and accuracy, so it’s a camera to be used with a bit of care, and not just for instant snapping.
If you want a point and shoot camera that also delivers a visible jump up in picture quality from a camera phone, you need one with a larger sensor. The Panasonic LX15, which goes by the name LX10 in some territories, has a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor that does the job perfectly. It’s true that there is no built-in EVF, which might put some people off, and the smooth finish to the body might make it look stylish but doesn’t make for the firmest handgrip. But the responsive touchscreen is terrific, the dual control rings provide a very pleasing user experience, and the 24-72mm has one of the widest aperture settings around, courtesy of its f/1.4 to f/2.8 aperture range. Overall, this neat little snapper has the near-perfect balance of features, performance and pricing. It’s small enough for your pocket, easy for beginners, but powerful enough to keep serious photographers happy too.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
Digital cameras share one advantage of the SLR design, as the camera’s display image comes through the lens, not a separate viewfinder. Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras (MILC Cameras) lack a mirror but in many ways can be used the same as DSLRs. Many smaller digital point-and-shoots of the 2010s omit the viewfinder and use only the screen.
With SLR cameras, it is important that the image in the viewfinder be the same image recorded by the film or sensor, so that the effect of the add-on lenses and filters can be seen by the photographer. Point-and-shoot cameras generally don’t have such add-on devices, hence no need.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
Small cameras, including digital ones, encourage the occurrence of photographic orbs — unexpected, typically circular artifacts that occur in flash photography — where the short distance between the lens and the built-in flash decreases the angle of light reflection to the lens. The resulting retroreflection makes dust particles bright and visible.[5]
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
The lowest-end point-and-shoot film cameras are similar to disposable cameras, but can be reloaded. These cameras have focus-free lenses, with fixed apertures. They may or may not have a light meter. Most have a wheel or lever for advancing the film and cocking the shutter, and a crank for returning the film to the canister for unloading. Because of the fixed apertures, models with flash have no way of controlling the exposure from the flash. Therefore, flash pictures have to be taken within a narrow range of distance from the subject.
Advanced models use automatic focus and have variable apertures. They all have light meters. They use electric motors to advance and rewind the film. They are much more versatile than the low-end models. They are also likely to have zoom lenses, more advanced auto-focus systems, exposure systems with manual controls, larger apertures and sharper lenses. They may have special lamps or pre-flash systems designed to reduce red eye in flash pictures of people.
Compact superzoom cameras or travel zoom cameras have zoom up to 30x, still shorter zoom than current bridge cameras, but more compact than bulky DSLR-shape bridge cameras, and both usually use 1/2.3″ sensor.[6]
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
The terms “point and shoot” and “compact camera” are used differently in different parts of the world. In the UK point-and-shoot predominantly means a fully automatic camera, regardless of size or shape. A “compact camera” on the other hand, has a small body, regardless of any fully automatic capabilities. Thus a DSLR can have point-and-shoot modes, and some compact cameras are not designed for point and shoot operation, with the equivalent controls to a DSLR.
The use of “point-and-shoot” to mean a small or compact camera regardless of automation capabilities has long been predominant in the US, and in the 21st century it began spreading elsewhere.
Since 2012, the term of ‘Compact System Camera’ is frequently used, but it is a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with various sensor sizes, smaller compact body than DSLR, but has capabilities near, same or even better than DSLRs.[11]
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
It may be diminutive, but the 20.3MP Canon PowerShot SX740 HS has a lens reach that outdoes what most professionals can achieve with their DSLRs, offering a focal rang equivalent to a whopping 24-960mm in 35mm terms. Also very useful here is an LCD that can be flipped to face the front, and thus the intended subject. Unsurprisingly, we also get a host of selfie-friendly shooting modes, although the camera still offers plenty of control for times when you need to intervene, with the usual PASM suspects selectable via the mode dial. You also get the ability to shoot 4K video (if you can make do with just Full HD the previous version Canon PowerShot SX730 HS may be found slightly cheaper). Autofocus performance is very good, however, as is image quality. Overall, this is a point-and-shoot camera with plenty of punch.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
The terms “point and shoot” and “compact camera” are used differently in different parts of the world. In the UK point-and-shoot predominantly means a fully automatic camera, regardless of size or shape. A “compact camera” on the other hand, has a small body, regardless of any fully automatic capabilities. Thus a DSLR can have point-and-shoot modes, and some compact cameras are not designed for point and shoot operation, with the equivalent controls to a DSLR.
The use of “point-and-shoot” to mean a small or compact camera regardless of automation capabilities has long been predominant in the US, and in the 21st century it began spreading elsewhere.
Since 2012, the term of ‘Compact System Camera’ is frequently used, but it is a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with various sensor sizes, smaller compact body than DSLR, but has capabilities near, same or even better than DSLRs.[11]
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
Panasonic’s long-running ZS series (‘TZ’ in the UK) always offers a capable choice for those seeking a fully-featured point and shoot camera for travel, and the Lumix ZS70– also known as the TZ90 – is no exception. This Wi-Fi-ready point and shoot camera boasts enough control to satisfy a broad range of users, with the creative advantage of a 30x optical zoom plus Raw shooting, and it performs well in terms of both stills and video (with 4K offered in the case of the latter).
A nice little touch is the inclusion of an electronic viewfinder – even if it is tiny – just above the LCD screen, as well as a lens control ring. The camera’s 49-area autofocus is pretty reliable and speedy enough, while image quality is generally very good, with the metering system balancing a variety of scenes. In short, the ZS70 is a great all-round point and shoot camera that won’t weigh heavily on your pocket – in every sense.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
As we touched on above, everyone who shops for a point-and-shoot camera is likely looking for slightly different things, even in a point and shoot camera, we’ve split our guide into four sections:
Cheap and simple: You don’t want to pay a fortune, you just want a decent little camera that doesn’t cost much to buy and it’s easy to use, right?
Tough and rugged: If you’re choosing a camera for the whole family, for days out on the beach or school camps, you’ll want one that’s waterproof and tougher all-round.
Longer zooms: A regular point and shoot camera will give you a zoom range of 3-5x, which is OK generally, but for travel and a wider range of subjects, a longer zoom is better.
Better quality: Most point-and-shoot cameras use small sensors, which keeps the price and size down but restricts the quality. These cameras have bigger, better sensors and are a worthwhile step.
So here are the best point-and-shoot cameras around right now, as well as the best prices. Our price tracking tool will pull in today’s best offers, so you can be sure you’re seeing the cheapest point-and-shoot camera prices and best camera deals available anywhere.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
A great point and shoot camera can be just as light as a phone while also being hardier, more versatile, better in low light and, generally, cheaper. A good point-and-shoot camera can quickly become your favorite travel companion, always on hand to whip out at a moment’s notice when a perfect scene presents itself.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
While it’s true that the best camera phones can rival or even surpass point and shoot cameras for picture quality, they tend to cost a bundle, and are unlikely to offer an optical zoom lens. The expense may also mean that you’re unlikely to want to take them into the kind of situations where you can get the best shots.
Best Point and Shoot Camera 2019
What makes for the best point and shoot camera? Different photographers will have different answers to this question. Maybe you want it to have a big old zoom lens that’ll shoot every subject under the sun. Perhaps you want a camera that produces great JPEGs straight off, with no editing required. Maybe you’ll be taking it on holiday and want it to be able to take a few knocks and even be submerged underwater. Maybe you just want something cheap that’ll work well.
If you really do need a tough point-and-shoot camera, the Tough TG lives up to its name. It might have a small 1/2.3-inch sensor, but it produces good quality images at all zoom settings of its 25-100mm equivalent lens, as well as high-quality 4K video too. It also has many superb extra features such as Macro and Microscope modes that allow you to get closer than ever before to your subjects, and technically minded photographers will love the pro-level features like RAW support and high-speed 20fps burst capture. Despite this, the fact that this camera can take a kicking means it’s a great one for families, as even the clumsiest of little ones would have a job breaking it. A superb travel camera for anyone, Olympus’s latest Tough TG is a perfect point-and-shoot for living a little more adventurously.
Dunk it 25m underwater, drop it on the rocks from 1.8m in the air or take in into sub-freezing temperatures; the Fujifilm FinePix XP140 can handle practically anything you care to throw at it. Even without factoring in its tough build, this is a capable camera in its own right, delivering high-quality images in a range of lighting conditions, and even managing to shoot UHD 4K video (albeit at a pretty middling 15p frame rate). It’s extremely easy to pick up and use, with helpful scene recognition modes to make the most of different situations, though it’s worth noting that it lacks manual modes and RAW capability, which might start to frustrate the more serious photographer. If that describes you, then it might be worth taking a gander at the Olympus Tough TG-6, just below…
Any point-and-shoot compact worth its salt has to differentiate itself from what a smartphone can do. The most useful advantage it can offer is an optical zoom, and that’s what you get here. The W800 has a lens that spans a focal range from 26-130mm, which covers most everyday needs easily. This is a basic camera, though, and the 2.7in LCD screen is pretty small with a low resolution by today’s standards. The little Sony can only capture standard HD 720p video and its continuous shooting speed is practically non-existent at 0.5fps, but this is a low-cost pocket-camera, so you can’t expect it to compete with higher end models.
