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"Great camera, when it works, but can be repaired" on by cmh35
Pros: Can find on ebay for a great price for a 5+ pixel camera with great functionality
Cons: Probably half of the cameras have problems with the battery door
Summary: I have purchased several of these cameras once I figured out how to fix the "Card Error" "Battery Cover Open" "Protected Card" messages that kept popping up and not allowing me to use the camera. Also sometimes the camera will turn off and the zoom is stuck open. This all has to do with the battery door being faulty on a lot of these cameras. The door does not close correctly so the camera believes the door is open or there is a problem with the card, battery etc. If you open the door and place a small folded up piece of paper or tissue and then shut the door so that it's tight (may need some tape to hold it in place), the camera stops producing those errors. These foam mounting squares (cut to size) work great: http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=0&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=10240
Great video, great sounds, great stills, far, action shots, zoom. This camera is great, it's just too bad the company didn't find out about the door issue. -
"Good and bad news to be shared." on by johnnymidnight
Pros: I have owned this camera for 5 years now (being 5 MP's at the time was COOL!) I love all the features this camera offers. Too many to go over, but plenty of options. It's a little big by today's standards, but very adequate. Excellent photos!!!
Cons: I did have to return it for repairs once. However, they sent a new camera with a second charger, tripod, case and another battery. The short battery life is not as significant when you have 3.
Summary: By todays standards, knowing what I know now, I would probably opt for something a little lighter. This camera is a little heavy if you want to carry it in your pocket. If your not a professional, or critique cameras everyday for a living, it's really a nice piece of equipment with alot of options. When I use one of the higher resolution settings, download the photos from the easy SD card format and blow them up they look perfectly fine. I get many compliments on the quality of these shots. The setting for quick targets works very well. The movie setting works fine for the average person, although you'll want a 512MB card or larger to make any movie of a decent length, but the SD cards are sooo inexpensive now that it's not prohibitive. You have to remember this is not cutting edge, brand new, state of the art and there are cheap cameras that use "Megapixels" as the big "buzz word" selling point. The truth is, you can probably get this camera at a fraction of what I paid for it 5 years ago and it probably offers more options and settings than a pretty little pink camera that can fall out of your pocket without you even knowing it. There are so many out there to chose from it's hard to say, but if you can pick one up at the right price, I would say "go for it". The versatility still amazes me when I discover something this camera does I didn't know about.
By the way, downlaoding from the camera to your computer couldn't be easier. It also comes with an RCA adapter so you can use the camera for a slide show on any TV (most) with standard RCA inputs. Alot of fun previewing right after shooting!
Updated on Jun 14, 2009
Updated on Jun 14, 2009By the way, downloading from the camera to you computer couldn't be easier with the included adapter. Also, included is a "camera to RCA" adapter for playing back through your TV as a slide show, etc. before deciding what to download. I'ts alot of fun and allows you to delete some, or all, selections before going to your computer and then editing shots out. Very easy. Most of the features of this camers did not even require me to read the instructions, although I don't recommend doing that exactly. Read all instructions like a normal person and follow their instructions, OK? -
"Good pictures under adequate lighting, difficult focus, slow performance." on by sjwvuie
Pros: Picture quality at 5.2 megapixels (with adequate lighting), small size fits into a pants pocket easily, decent battery life.
Cons: Very slow focus and shot to shot time, terrible pictures if adequate lighting is not available.
Summary: Purchased this camera 2 years ago and it has served it's purpose very well. It has provided very good quality 5+ megapixel (4 x 6) pictures over this time.
My negatives on this camera have been the autofocus timing and shot to shot timing which are annoyingly slow, as well as the inability of the camera to take a quality picture under low lighting. I have used the camera to take pictures of my daughter who is now 2, and I probably have more pictures of the back of her head than anything else as I would normally miss the picture opportunity if I didn't already have the camera on and ready. When lighting is available the pictures turn out great, but when lighting is not available the shots look terrible.
I bought this camera for the price which was very reasonable at the time for a 5 megapixel camera, but I would not recommend it to someone who was planning on using it to capture spur of the moment shots or photos where timing is critical. If you can have the luxury of pre-focusing your subjects, as well as always having appropriate lighting on your side then this is a very good camera. Otherwise keep looking. -
"Very disappointing!" on by akdale
Pros: Small size.
Cons: Difficult to turn on, slow to boot, unreliable focus, marginal flash.
Summary: This camera was fairly expensive when I bought it ($499.99 with accessory kit) and I expected reliable and high quality results. Very disappointed!
Very slow and unreliable focus. That in itself is enough to make me want to throw this thing in the river. Never mind that it will power up on the first attempt only about half the time due to the rediculously small power button.
Battery life is okay and I do like the SD card. Beyond that this camera is a dismal failure in my opinion. I'm shopping for a Canon! -
"great way to miss priceless moments" on by GermTheWorm
Pros: nice hand warmer.
Cons: Everything about thing camera
Summary: The WORST camera ever. This camera total sucks. The pictures are only decent one fourth of the pictures taken. The picture quality over all is terrible. My sister has a Canon S20 that is 4 years old, and it even takes better pictures than this camera. The pictures come out really pixilated, even if its fair away. There is color saturation and a lot of noise at all of the ISO levels. The previews look wonderful, but when printed out, the pictures are abosulutle horrible. The battery life is very brief and heats up very quickly, making it a bit uncomfortable to hold. The battery life is even shorter than the s20's. The software included is very troublesome, see, the problem is that they expect you to manually upload the pictures using my computer, lucky for me, I have an 8-1 media slot. The instructions are not very clear, I wasted 70 dollars on a one gigabite memory card, and it can't even use it. The manual never mentioned the memory card capacity. The battery cover looks like it could be broken off with a child's hand, and the ports are also left open, which isn't a good thing. The night mode and sport mode is absolutely useless, the night mode doesn't even work, and the sport mode can't even take pictures of tennis players without blurrs.
Bottom line: don't buy this camera, unless you are very rich and don't have anything to do with your money. It's a very nice looking paper weight, maybe you could replace the stone with this.
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