Tomy Me:sia (1999)

Even Tomy, a toy manufacturer, decided to market a digital camera at the turn of the century. The result turned out to be a digital camera with the obscure name Me:sia. Sometimes interpreted as Mexia or Mesia. Announced by Tomy on 1999-11-13. The sensor, as most digital cameras in this league, was a CMOS sensor. Interestingly the tiny digital camera came with a parallel port cable instead of a smaller and more practicable serial RS-232 cable. The initial Me:sia was pearl blue.

Because the Me:sia was so tiny and did not have an LCD screen, Tomy teamed up with Bandai. Bandai had released the Wonder Swan handheld console a few months earlier and Tomy adopted it so it could be connected to the Me:sia. The console was re-named Wonder Mexia. I don't know if it was ever sold though.

After it's initial release and it's success on the market, Tomy re-released the Me:sia on 2000-6-29. This time in a white and pink housing and a Hello Kitty design. The specs were the same but the software was based on Hello Kitty icons and stuff. It did not sell as good as the initial Me:sia which did not stop Tomy to market another model, just one month later. The last of the Me:sia digital cameras was announced on 2000-07-27. It was pearl pink and it had an animal theme. With a special software one could take a picture and frame it with little animal icons. It also came with a sheet of tiny stickers. The specs were the same as the other Me:sia's. It too didn't sell as well as the first model though.

The entire Me:sia line was cancelled and replaced by an even more toylike digital camera from the PLUM line. PLUM stood for Personal Life Useful Model and the camera resembled more a pill box then a camera.