Some good features, but some major dealbreakers.
Strengths:FAST startup time, great in-camera features for cleaning up photos & applying effects to them, gorgeous large screen (with instructions in full english sentences), intuitive interface & buttons.
Weaknesses:Weak flash, takes dark photos, flash is in awkward spot, requires the included dock (2-pieces, fragile, and requires 3 cables) to charge the battery & to connect to a computer.
Posted Dec 16, 2006 - This is not a digital camera that I would really recommend to anybody. Although there are a few good features, there are some MAJOR dealbreakers with this camera. Then again, what would you expect from a company that specializes in printers, not digital cameras?
First, the good news:
1. Incredibly fast. You can take a photo in less than 1 second of turning this camera on. I have not seen this with any other digital cameras on the market. It is also ready to take additional photos almost instantaneously after taking the previous photos. Very nice speed.
2. Beautiful large gorgeous screen, with full-text paragraphs explaining key features of the camera. This is is so invaluable.
Now the bad news:
1. Notice where the flash is located -- it is RIGHT UNDERNEATH the shutter button that you press every time you want to take a photo. What this means is that your right hand will almost always be blocking the flash when it goes off, unless you are CONSCIOUSLY AWARE about twisting your fingers & your hand to NOT block the flash.
2. The flash is NOT POWERFUL at all... it can barely light up an object that is 5 feet away. And unlike most other digital cameras on the market, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to alter the brightness of the flash.
3. Because the flash is not powerful at all, ALL indoor pictures come out EXTREMELY DARK and nighttime pictures outside are completely out-of-the-question. This has not happened with any of my other digital cameras that I have owned -- this if the first camera that is completely disappointing in these regards. This makes this camera basically unusable to us. We took 3 photos side-by-side with 2 other digital cameras in the same indoor room, and the other cameras resulted in clear, bright photos. Not this one. This one's photos came out dark & unusable.
4. You're not going to believe this, but you can NOT download your photos from this digital camera to your computer without lugging along the 4-piece DOCK that comes with the camera!!! That's right -- you have to log along a 4-piece Dock (one plastic mounting piece, one plastic docking station, and 2 power cables)! I have never seen another digital camera like this before! You can not simply bring along a tiny USB cable to connect this to your computer, so it makes this camera much less portable than any other digital camera on the market.
5. Furthermore, you also can not recharge the battery in this camera without lugging along the 4-piece dock as well. Unless you're interested in purchasing a $80 battery recharger kit for this camera that they sell at Best Buy & other electronics stores, you will be stuck lugging along this 4-piece dock with you wherever you go.
6. If you're planning on using the built-in videocamera to take videos, prepare for your videos to be jerky & dimly lit. Granted, this isn't a dedicated videocamera, but still, I've seen better video quality from other digital cameras on the market.
7. And finally, even if you were to ignore everything else above, it all comes down to how good your photos are, right? Well, unfortunately, this camera's photos are not sharp at all -- all images come out very soft.
I can not recommend this camera to anyone, and I'm sad that I bought it for myself.
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