Rating: 
Summary: Not very bad
Review: I was thinking of buying a digicam for myself. For a reasonable pricerange - .... My two options were Canon A40 and Olympus D550. After surching digital camera reviews sites for a couple of days I decided to go for Olympus. My neighbor has Canon A40 so I had a chance to compare pictures made with two cameras under similar conditions. Olympus was superior. My surprise came when I transfered a couple of pictures made at night. I see 7 vertical distinctive dark strips on every picture under low light condition! I took another one from Staples - and got same thing! At the same time my sister has same camera bought 7 month ago, and those pictures are OK. I am all confused...
Rating: 
Summary: D-550 Olympus AWESOME!
Review: I will never again take pix with a 35mm camera. Not as long as I have the Olympus Dig.550D. The colors & resolution are more vivid than reality. I use an HP 7150 photo series printer when I print the pix and nothing compares to the quality. Everyone who sees my photos agrees. I took many shots in Alaska this summer and the prints I made far surpass professional quality. You don't have to be a professional to operate this user friendly digital camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not the excellent
Review: I'm totally happy with the picture quality for the price i'd paid for it.However, there are some small hitches that users might need to consider before buying this camera 1) lens shutter door is flimsy and cumbersome
2) software isn't that great and I use MGI photosuite instead
3) flash opens up automatically when opening the lens door but
doesn't close automatically
4) Ease of use isn't that great.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp pictures, a pleasue to own.
Review: I've only had this camera a few weeks and I am extremely pleased with its performance. My previous camera was a Sony Mavica with 640 x 480 resolution, so you can imagine what a difference it makes when you can get a resolution as high as 1984 x 1488. So far every picture I've taken as turned out sharp and crisp just using the default settings. Anything to a landscape to a close-up of my orchids has come out just fine. Pictures I have printed out using an older printer come out looking like real photos (unless you put your nose in the photo where you can see each pixel). I have to agree with one reviewer about the manual, it jumps around a bit and leaves out key bits (like the camera has to be in the on position to download to the computer, to an experienced digital camera user it is a no-brainer, but to a novice...). Unlike some cameras it feels sturdy in your hands, not cheap. Make sure you have a USB hook-up in the back of your computer, if you have a older computer (5-6 years old) you may not have this feature. Consider getting a tripod if you're going to use the night feature as the shutter will be open for a couple of seconds. Overall a great camera, worth the 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: For me, the perfect digital camera
Review: I've tried out many different digital cameras over the last three or four years, from Kodak to Olympus to Canon to odd ones like HP. I've tried cameras that cost anything from $150 to $1000. So, when it came time for me to give up my never-used 35mm Canon SLR, I knew exactly which digital camera I wanted to replace it with. A few years back, I tried out a friend's Olympus Camedia camera with the same body as this one. It was only in the 2-megapixel range, as opposed to the 3 megapixels of this model, but I was always really impressed with the quality of picture it took. For a point and shoot digital camera, the shots were just amazing. So I didn't have to look very far before I found this camera, the Camedia D-550. And it's certainly lived up to the expectations I'd developed from using the friend's camera. In my opinion, this is what really makes this camera stand out from its competition: ' It looks and feels like a camera. Some digital cameras go out of their way to be all futuristic and oddly shaped, which I find annoying. I want to be able to hold a camera with my hands, not my fingertips. ' The design of the navigation software is excellent. I've used cameras that go to the extremes of interface design, and I've hated it. I used a Kodak camera once that used menus and control panels that were so big and colorful, it was like it was designed by Fisher-Price. Sure, it looked friendlier to use at first, but when I actually tried to find anything, like how to change the size of my pictures, it was too big and clunky. On the other extreme, some companies make cameras that use a completely bare and technical interface that's impossible to understand. With the Camedia D-550, all of your important tools are no more than two button presses away, thanks to the intuitive design of the interface. If you want to switch to Macro mode, you just turn the camera on and press "Up" twice. If you want to change the size of the pictures you're taking, you just hit the menu button and press left on the wheel that pops up, and you'll see a nice list. Not too invasive, not too technical. ' Streamlined features. A few years ago, it became popular to pack as many different things into a camera as you possibly could. Sound recorders! Movie cameras! PDAs! Cell phones! Put everything you'd ever want in one device! I thought this was a terrible idea. If you want a video camera, get a video camera. A still camera can't possibly hold more than a tiny clip, so why even bother? While this Camedia D-550 does come with the ability to take video clips, it doesn't assume that video will be your primary use of the camera like other models sometimes do. The feature is there, but you can easily ignore it. ' Rugged body design. Olympus sells a similar Camedia to this in features and price, but a different body. I borrowed one for a weekend, and was constantly having trouble with the lens that stuck out of the camera body. The lens cap would fall off all the time, and I just wasn't careful enough with it. When I had my 35mm SLR, I just put a UV filter over the glass of the real lens, and didn't worry about scratching it, but you couldn't do that with the other Camedia lens. With the D-550, you avoid the problem entirely. When you turn the camera off, the lens retracts into the body of the camera, and is covered by the sliding panel that's part of the camera body. It's a brilliant design that keeps the lens safe, and the speed of the lens movement is quick enough that it's not annoying. I love that my camera is so tough. Though I haven't dropped it yet, I have the feeling it would survive a drop just fine. ' And, of course, the image quality. Even with plain old point-and-shoot simplicity, the colors are vivid and sharp, the exposure is just right, and the low-light pictures are just incredible, which is important to me as a hater of flashbulbs. The other day, a bird fell down our chimney and got trapped in the upper grill of our fireplace, beyond where we could see. So I stuck the camera up into the fireplace and had someone point a dim flashlight where we thought the bird was, and I got a pretty decent picture of it! The bird ended up getting out of the fireplace and flying out the window just fine, by the way. :-) The macro feature is pretty cool, too. My desktop picture on my computer is a photo of an ant I took with my D-550. People are really impressed that the ant takes up 3 inches on my screen. When you consider all the excellent features this camera has, then realize that it's much less expensive than similar cameras, it seems like a no-brainer. I would have easily paid twice what I did for the D-550, and still felt like I was getting a great deal. This camera is going to last me a long, long time, and I'm loving every minute of it.
Rating:
Summary: Nifty camera, but has some annoying traits
Review: If you are looking for a versatile, relatively inexpensive 3 megapixel digital camera, the Olympus Camedia D-550 is a very nice selection. It takes good pictures, the Camedia software has greatly improved over earlier versions, and transferring pictures is especially easy using Windows XP (Home version). One of the neat things about the camera is the ability to let you choose what equivalent film speed you want to use. The "faster" the film (i.e., the higher the ASA number), the less light you need, but the grainier the picture. I took a few pictures at dusk in the San Diego harbor using an equivalent ASA of 400 and got some terrifically colorful, but grainy shots. That said, there are some aspects of this camera that are annoying. Nothing that cannot be dealt with, but it's still annoying that you have to deal with them. First, the flash pops up EVERY time you open the camera lens. I don't know why this is so annoying, but it is. Second, the camera defaults to a HQ (high quality) resolution that is not the best resolution. You have to change that manually. The problem is, every time you shut off the camera, it resets to the default setting again. Third, the default setting on digital zoom is off. Again, you can change it manually, but guess what? Every time you turn off the camera, it goes back to the default on the digital zoom as well. Fourth, the instruction booklet is skimpy on information. If you like playing with this toys, this may not be a bad thing; but it would be nice to have more information on how to use all of the features. In summary, this is not always a user friendly camera, but if you overlook those flaws (which just require you to keep on your toes), this is a very good camera.
Rating:
Summary: Great device for day light pictures
Review: It is versatile and quite robust with battery life. Takes few seconds to charge up. All in all a great product.
Rating:
Summary: My search is over
Review: It took me a week to find my first digital camera (I tried both Olympus D-520 and Kodak D-3600 (what a joke this Kodak!) but I returned them after couple of days of use) and by this time I've been having D-550 for two weeks already and I just want to describe its pros and cons based on my own experience. Pros: 1) Compact size. Viewfinder and lenses are protected when the camera is off
2) Battery compartment has a lock that prevents it from being accidentally opened (I had this problem with D-520 and Kodak)
3) No special software or drivers required (I use Win2000) to transfer data from camera to PC or vice versa (unlike Kodak)
4) Amazing picture quality when you shoot outside whether it's sunny, cloudy or it's night. For night pictures you MUST use tripod or place camera on something steady. I'm not quite impressed with pictures taken inside but it's a tough test for any camera and I've not finished yet playing with manual settings. I believe I can get more out of it Cons: 1) Often when I look through viewfinder my nose sticks to monitor leaving marks (not such a big problem as it may sound)
2) Movie mode lacks sound and limited to ~30 seconds. Of course you can have as many 30 sec flicks as your memory allows
3) Viewfinder is a bit offset
4) No buttons or any other widgets to pick mostly used features like scene or flash selection. You are bound to use menu A LOT which is not the most handiest way
5) Useless printed manual. You should read PDF one on included CD To sum up I would say that I'm really happy with this camera, it already gave me good deal of joy and sense of satisfaction. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: It's pretty good
Review: My 1st digital camera. Okay my 1st REAL digital camera. The others were pretty much disposable. I like the Olympus Camedia D-550 3MP fairly straight foreword use. Excellent photographs. READ the manual before. Fits nicely in the hand. The flash can get in the way if your not used to having it in its place. Just a little re-adjustment in how you hold the camera. What I don't like is the resetting of preferences each time you turn it. Wish it could hold what dpi and format you want. It's just a little bothersome. It's not time consuming to set that information. All in all it's a fairly good camera.
Rating: 
Summary: If you want an Olympus Camera under $500, get the 520.
Review: Not worth the price! I had both, the 520 first, which had some features I was not happy with but I thought the 550 with the 3 MP was the way to improve on it. Definitely not. At night, it looked like there were UFO's behind me. Even when standing perfectly still, lights came out as streaks in the background. Printed pictures were not great and most photos taken were blurry. In the end I got the Sony CyberSHots 71
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