Rating: 
Summary: Good starter, but let down by poor software and interface
Review: I have pretty mixed feelings about this camera. It's original raison d'etre it has fulfilled well - in transitioning my wife from 35mm to digital. it's small, reasonably light and as a 'point and shoot', obtains reasonable pictures.However to diverge from automatic control is fiddly and slightly masked by an iconic menu system - where a word would save several pictures. The manufacturer's offering of 16Mb card + 2 alkaline batteries is woefully inadequate - I'd prefer it came with no card and save a few pennies. 32Mb is adequate; 64 is good. Realistically, it has to be used with rechargeable batteries - a charging circuit in the camera would be a good start. The software is abysmal - both Mac and PC. The Webcam mode is useless and not available for Mac (no mention of this on the manufacturer's site); the 'fine pix' photoeditor is slow and painful (tip for mac users, just plug it in, copy the files over and use iphoto or graphics converter) - again save some money and don't even bother with the CD. Also the Mac version refused to load until a lot of weird tricks were done. The xD cards are small and fast but are yet another standard which is incompatible with Smart Media, Sony Memory Stick, Compact Flash etc... Price seems reasonable. Low light or indoor photographs are problematic using the automatic settings. Overall not bad and an excellent 'starter' camera albeit with anoying limitations.
Rating: 
Summary: Fuji FinePix 2650, the way to go
Review: My wife and I decided to get a digital camera. Because I'm a techno-head Art Director, not just any camera would do and the price had to be right. Plus, it had to be loaded with enough features to justify the purchase. I really wanted at least a 4.0 mega pixel but after discussing it over with my wife, we figured a 2.0 would do exactly what we wanted: 1. Instant digital gratification.
2. Excellent for e-mail shots and iPhoto.
3. The possibility of printing higher res shots. It takes great color shots right out of the box. Extremely intuitive. The optical zoom eliminates bitmapping (jaggies) when close-up. And the auto-focus mode is idiot proof. It has 5 flash modes for lots of shooting customization. Macro (close-up 3.9" to 2.6') and self-timer photography add to the host of features. White Balance (for light sources), Exposure Compensation and Movie (no sound video) mode round off this great little camera. Check out the fujifilm.com sight for a great interactive preview. It's what really sold me. The purchase is up to you from there. The only other option in the same category was an Olympus, but the memory card was only 8mb, as was the Sony which only had its body-style going for it. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: YAY!
Review: great little camera. it has all the functions needed without getting screwed over with one button like those $40-110 ones... they all suck. this is basically the bare minimum for a cute little camera. GREAT FOR HIKING! you can't drop it off the mountian and get totally upset cause its not a horribly expensive camera!!!
Rating:
Summary: FinePix 2650 - a very modern camera
Review: Fuji FinePix 2650 is my third digital camera. The first one was KB JamCam (that is sold for [$$$] today) and the second one was Kyocera KZ (that I bought for [$$$] or so). Although I had to pay slightly more this time, the improvement is obvious. The pictures are crisp and sharp with colors that are smooth and bright. Unlike the previous cameras, I do not need to adjust the brightness or the contrast of each picture using photoshop software. They look beautiful as soon as I upload them into my computer (and even on the camera's LCD display). The flash does not "wash out" the faces; the pictures taken at night look fine, too. The camera has automatic detection of the lighting and also a manual mode that allows one to adjust the "weather" and other parameters. There are also several settings for the flash (on/off/auto/red-eye-remove/night-scene). Fuji did a great job with power conservation. Two alkaline AA batteries (included) were sufficient to take about 150 pictures (including 50 shots with flash) and several short videos before the "battery low" icon appeared. The power saving features are better than they used to be even though the lens is moving constantly especially when the camera is turned off and on. This motion looks sexy and the sliding cover protecting lens is useful. Aside from the power switch attached on spring, trigger and the switch between three modes stillpix/view/video, the camera is controlled by three buttons next to display - which I would call "display on/off/grid", "enter" and "escape" - and four arrow keys to browse the menus on the LCD display. The up/down arrow key is put on the same button which is also used to zoom in/out. FinePix 2650 can zoom up to 3 times optically (which is the case that keeps the maximal resolution) and the LCD display shows where the digital zoom - up to 2.5 times - takes over. FinePix 2650 has furthermore the 3-position trigger with the AF/AE lock that allows one to focus on the object which won't be in the center of the picture at the end. The totally new feature of FinePix 2650 - compared to its predecessor 2600 - is its tiny and cute Fuji XD memory card. The default 16 MB card (included) can be replaced by cards with up to 128 MB (the biggest one costs about 70 dollars). I am afraid that it is such a big memory that the (alkaline) batteries would be gone before I could fill the memory. With 16 MB I can take about 45 pictures at my favorite 1280 x 960 resolution, about 30 pictures at the maximal resolution 1600 x 1200, or about 130 small 640 x 480 images. The camera has the logo "designed for Windows XP" (which is my OS) and it works without any problems (I believe it also works with all older systems). FinePix 2650 immediately connects to the PC as a "removable disk FinePix E:" in my case. The package contains a manual as well as some extra new photoshop software. The camera can be also connected as a PC camera for videoconferencing.
Generally the videos from FinePix 2650 are sharper than those made with Logitech QuickCam, for example, however I am not satisfied with the behavior of videos in darker environments. The videos (and probably also the image from the "webcam 2650") are too dim and I found even QuickCam better in these situations. The camera also does not focus very well in the dark which makes the pictures a bit fuzzy especially if the flash is not used. There is a lot of space for improvement. However, night video is not the main reason why I bought this camera and therefore I can unequivocably recommend this camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent in most respects
Review: The Fuji FinePix 2650 is an excellent choice for an economical digital camera. For inside shots, it excels at portraits of two or three people but the flash has difficulty illuminating groups as small as half a dozen people. Outside, using natural lighting,I have produced landscape photographs that are breathtaking in their sharpness and true color. Even tricky light settings, such as snow cover, produced pictures that would make a professional proud. The 2 Megapixel photos look good even when printed as 8 x 10's. However, if you like to crop pictures using photo software, you are somewhat limited in what you can achieve without loosing resolution. I am very satisfied with battery life (especially if you avoid using the LCD to compose pictures). If you are so inclined, a variety of manual settings are available through the LCD display, which are not difficult to master. However, in bright sunlight, the LCD display is difficult if not impossible to read. Used with a tripod, the manual settings provide good opportunities to be creative although the options do not directly simulate the controls of a SLR camera - that requires significantly greater investment in a digital camera. The lens cover of this remarkably compact camera has a tendency to partially close while composing shots until you figure out the best way to grasp the camera - not a big concern except for the ham fisted. The FinePix Viewer software works well for downloading pictures to the computer but I prefer Photoshop for editing pictures. Many pictures should be "auto level adjusted" with photosoftware to get the best color and brightness, but this is easy to do and is probably required for photos from many kinds of digital cameras. For the money, this is close to a 5 star camera; however, for those wanting more control over aperature, shutter speed, and "film" speed, a more expensive camera will be required.
Rating:
Summary: Fuji FinePix 2650, the way to go
Review: y wife and I decided to get a digital camera... Because I'm a techno-head Art Director, not just any camera would do and the price had to be right. Plus, it had to be loaded with enough features to justify the purchase. I really wanted at least a 4.0 mega pixel but after discussing it over with my wife, we figured a 2.0 would do exactly what we wanted: 1. Instant digital gratification.
2. Excellent for e-mail shots and iPhoto.
3. The possibility of printing higher res shots. It takes great color shots right out of the box. Extremely intuitive. The optical zoom eliminates bitmapping (jaggies) when close-up. And the auto-focus mode is idiot proof. It has 5 flash modes for lots of shooting customization. Macro (close-up 3.9" to 2.6') and self-timer photography add to the host of features. White Balance (for light sources), Exposure Compensation and Movie (no sound video) mode round off this great little camera. Check out the fujifilm.com sight for a great interactive preview. It's what really sold me. The purchase is up to you from there. The only other option in the same category was an Olympus, but the memory card was only 8mb, as was the Sony which only had its body-style going for it. Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing in every way
Review: I am sorry to say this but the Fuji 2650 is a very poor camera. It should be recalled and taken off the market. 1. The 2650 is only good for outdoor daylight posed shots or indoor posed shots within 8 feet due to a feeble flash and poor low light picture taking ability. 2. The time delay between pushing the button and the shutter snap is so unacceptably slow that you will always miss the candid shot. 3. The fixed ISO is set to ISO 100 which is too slow to stop any action. 4. Forget about any low light picture taking.I have seen other digital cameras take clear night photos. There is no hope of doing that with this toy. 5. The auto-focus seemed to work better when the camera was new but now it seems to have gotten slow and unpredictable and seems to frequently focus on things other than what is in the Autofocus frame. 6. When taking consecutive pictures of the same subject in Auto mode, the shutter speeds inexplicably vary between 1/140 and 1/450 sec. causing various degrees of blurriness . 7. Red Eye reduction and all the other special settings do nothing. All these special features may sound cute but in reality are just nonfunctional gimmicks. It would be nice if Fuji would get serious and dispense with all this silly nonsense and just build in a faster ISO or variable ISO speed. 8. The worst thing is that the logic chip has gone haywire causing the LCD display to be scrambled and unusable. Others have had this same problem and have stated Fuji can't seem to fix it. 9. Video mode has no sound. You will immediately wish it did. Anyone who thinks this is a "great" camera and gives it 4 or 5 stars in these user reviews either has very low standards or is just plain ignorant. This is such a disappointing camera I am not even going to spend the money to try to get it fixed. According to other reviews it may come back from Fuji still broken... or fixed temporarily and only work for a short time before the LCD problem reoccurs. Do yourself a favor. Get a Canon or an Olympus with 100, 200, and 400 ISO speeds built in. It's important.
Rating:
Summary: Was nice WHILE it worked!
Review: Well, mine went belly up (after less than a year) while I was in Hawaii! Now there's a trip you can't run back and enjoy too often! All of a sudden, out of the blue, the screen went white with a line through it! Can't take pictures, can't review pictures, can't see pictures, can't see options, can't see nor do nuttin'! Dead!! I thought at first that it was just another one of those things that seem to happen to me when I try to purchase something everyone else likes. Not true! I read several reviews on here where people had this SAME exact problem; white screen with line through it. I'm just out a camera and had to finish my Hawaiian vacation with a disposable camera! Don't think I'll be buying ANY new digital cameras in the near future. I'll stick with the disposable cameras from the drugstore! Well, now that I think of it, I guess my FUJI 2650 is DISPOSABLE camera, too, isn't it??? Grrrrrrrrrr
Rating:
Summary: Research pays off...
Review: Being clueless about digital cameras, I spent over six months researching all the brands and options before settling on the Fuji 2650, picking it up on a "day after Christmas" sale with a combination of gift cards and about $100 out of pocket. This is an outstanding camera for the money! Yes, it eats batteries, but this is pretty much a "standard" feature" of digital cameras, and this one does have power saving features that reduce this problem. Plus, It only uses 2 AA's at a time. Find a good deal on Alkaline batteries, or buy rechargeables.
With both night and macro (extreme close up) modes, it works awesome under any condition. There is a good range of features and the software is both easy to install and use. I may "move up" to a 3 megapixel at some point down the road... but if I do, it'll be a Fuji! If you are looking for a great camera at a fair price, buy the Fuji 2650!
Rating:
Summary: Great for those who aren't good w/ technology
Review: I got my camera last Christmas, and I'm glad to say it has lasted me a year. The layout of the camera is simple. You just probably just take it out of the box and start using it without the manual (that's what I did). Switch from the camera view to the view pictures screen to the camera view instantly by just moving a dial. They're even labeled well! Camera view is a camera, the picture viewer is a Play button icon, and the video view is a video recorder picture. It doesn't take a lot of thought to tell which one is which. The image quality is good. It works for me. Some people aren't fond of it, though. But if you're someone who doesn't need huge, perfect, crisp photos every time, like me and most of us, this is the camera. The quality lowers a bit when pictures are taken in very dark areas, but still turn out. The most pictures you can take is about 130, the dimentions about 800 x 600 (it could be 1024 x 768, I'm not quite sure), the smallest dimentions. You take take HUGE ones, but you are limited to about 15 of them. The # you can take depend on the battery juice and the amount of pictures and their quality already token. Battery juice is the only drawback. It drains them in about 2-4 hours. ALWAYS bring extra. It does take a little while for the camera to load and prepare for a picture after you've already taken one. It depends on the setting of No Flash, Flash, No Red Eye, or Auto. In conclusion, if you aren't some magazine photographer and just want it for personal, family, or web site use, this is the perfect camera. It's cheap, too ;).
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