Rating: Summary: The best value for money that I found Review: I made an extensive search and comparison of prices and features in Feb 2003 and found Kodak DX4330 as the best value for money. Here are the highlights based on 3 weeks of use.It's memory can be expanded with standard MMC cards. It has good zoom and video with sound. 3.1 MPIX photos have same quality as film based cameras with good lens. Pictures taken with flash are also very good. Exporting pictures to PC is very easy and they can be archieved and edited. There are some negatives as well. The quality of video is poor when exported to computer or video recorder. The lens cover does not hold in place. The camera body is plastic and would break if dropped, I'm afraid.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Digital Camera! Skip the Dock, though. Review: The DX4330 is my first digital camera and I am very pleased. It really is easy and fun to use. The 3X optical zoom is a very nice feature and the image quality is excellent. It is really nice to pick out the pictures you like, edit them (the free Kodak editing software is very good) and print them. If you want to do fancy stuff such as add text to the pictures, you will have to use a more powerful editor such as PaintShop Pro or Photoshop Elements. Instead of printing mine, however, I uploaded them to [local store] for $$$ per 4X6 or $$$ per 5X7. The results were great! I bought the DX4330 bundled with the Easy Share Dock. Now that I see what the Dock is all about, I would not recommend others buy it. It gives you the dock and a NiMH "Battery Pack." The camera snaps into the dock and it will charge the battery while it is connected. The USB connection from the dock allows you to transfer your files to you PC also. Here is the rub, however: The dock will ONLY charge the special Kodak NIMH "battery pack" - if you have other NIMH batteries in the camera, it will not charge them. I think the shape of the plastic shroud on the kodak batttery pack trips a switch inside the camera to tell it that the pack is in there. As to uploading pictures - you don't need the dock. You can just as easily plug the camera itself into the PC via the USB cable. Windows sees it as just another hard drive and you can drag and drop you pictures to where you want them. Instead of buying the dock, I would recommend the following: 1.) Buy a nice Maha charger and some Powerex 1800 NiMH AA batteries - This will solve your battery problems. 2.) Buy a 128MB SanDisk SD card for less than $$$ (they keep getting cheaper). This will let you store about 100 highest quality photos in your camera instead of about 16 with the internal memory. 3.) Buy a cheap SD USB card reader - I bought a PNY model for $$$. This lets you take the SD card out of the camera and pop it into the card reader to load into your PC - you won't have to connect the camera at all! Hope this helps!
Rating: Summary: Great camera Review: I am a happy owner of this camera model. It has everything you need. It takes pictures almost automatic, it has a good zoom, many options in the menu, sharing capabilities, and so on. The resolution is more that great! But if you want to take pictures at a high resolution, you are going to need an extra memory card. I have a 256Mb MMC and it can store more than 300 pictures at the highest resolution. The image quality from the pictures is very good. I have printed like 100 pictures (using an online service) and the quality of the printed pictures is even better than a film camera. The only issue I've found in this model is that in the night, there's a green led next to the viewfinder which makes visibility through the viewfinder very hard. Sometimes you have to take pictures using a good sense of positioning because the viewfinder will be completely unhelpful. Another drawback in this model is the self-timer. It has only one option (on/off) sometimes I'd like to have more options like (number of pictures, time to wait, etc.). The camera don't have any effect in the menu, but come on, this is still digital so you can make the effects with the software included. But this mean that you are going to need software if you are thinking in making some funny picture effects. And finally, after buying this camera, you'll have to think seriosly about buying rechargable batteries. You are really going to need them when you are traveling and need to take several pictures.
Rating: Summary: Better Than My Old Casio Review: Outstanding Digital Camera. Heck of a change from my 6 year old Casio QV-100. Extremely easy to use and images are super sharp up to 8X10 at max resolution...to be expected with a 3.1 MP camera. Great at the midrange setting also. Opt for the largest SD memory card you can afford as you will be firing off pics one after the other. A 64MB SD card will save just a little over 4 minutes of reasonably good quality video. A dock, which simplifies image transfer and recharges the battery ([$$]), is not necessary unless you are a novice and/or are really into convenience. The camera comes with a USB cable for connection to a PC and you can purchase an additional battery and a charger from Kodak for a lot less. Kodak's Easyshare (included)software is a no brainer and will work fine transferring the images into your PC. It also has good image editing/viewing capabilities. It will save the transferred images to it's own folder (no choice), requiring you to move/copy them if desired. The only drawback (IMHO) is the videos are in apple quicktime format (which I detest) and are quite large compared to the MPEG format. Overall a great camera.
Rating: Summary: Full of problems Review: I haven't had this camera for very long but it has already made me swear off ever buying anything made by Kodak again. Twice is has randomly told me I need to format my memory card because it could not read it. This means all the pictures I had taken (some of which were very important and special) were gone forever. Please do not buy this camera.
Rating: Summary: great camera, fair software Review: This is a simple camera that does a lot. It's lightweight, takes pretty good pictures, has excellent storage and battery life. I have had a lot of trouble with the software; sometimes it won't download, or it will take several tries until the pictures download. This can be frustrating. Kodak has been helpful and concerned but has not been able to do much about this. Some cautions/advice: you do NOT need the docking cradle unless you really like rechargeable batteries. The cradle takes up room and is no easier than the USB cable, in my opinion. Also, you should ONLY take pictures in the "Highest Quality" setting; anything less can be grainy. The camera cannot focus on moving objects, and the flash is only useful in quite close shots; for others in even soft light, it's best to set the camera on "night" or "landscape," as another reviewer also advised. Red-eye is chronic and the software has been of limited utility in correcting them (and my son has bright blue eyes, which end up devilishly red every time). The memory cards are invaluable. Get as much as you can on one card; there's no reason to get less than 128MB. I took 175 pix on 2-64MB cards but was always worried about losing the full card. The travel kit is very useful: I used the case as a purse while traveling (with the camera nestled inside) and it comes with all kinds of adapters that travelers need. However, battery life is looooong: on a two week vacation on which I took 175 pix, I only used two (non-rechargeable) batteries. Otherwise, the travel case is kind of big, so a smaller case would be useful and they are easy to find. I bought a smaller case direct from Kodak. Summary: great camera, great value, fussy software, excellent customer service, excellent accessories, skip the docking cradle.
Rating: Summary: Well... Review: Well...I've had this camera for nearly a year. For the first 6 months, I had no problems whatsoever with it. It's an easy to use, few features (compared to other cameras) to deal with, and takes good pictures. I used the better setting to take pictures and they came out great. That's a plus to this camera. However, after 6 months or so, the camera started having its issues. I had trouble keeping the camera on, and it would turn off when I would press the review button. Nice feature to have right at your fingertips but pointless if the thing turns off and restarts every time you press it. Then I had an issue with it not turning on at all. I replaced the batteries, I put it on the docking station and it wouldn't turn on that way either. I was pretty miffed at Disneyland when the camera wouldn't turn on. Two days later however it resurrected itself...by this time I was home already and Disneyland was in the past. Anyway, I sent the camera to be repaired...to some place in Connecticut...they returned the camera saying they had done a complete repair and restoration to factory specs. No more than two weeks later, same problem occurred. I pressed the review button and the camera turned itself off and on again. Now it doesn't turn on at all...again. So I called Kodak and I have to send it in for repair...again...I'd like my money back actually to buy a different brand. Maybe it's just my camera, but be cautious with this one. They're not selling them anymore anyway, but at one point the LCD display had interesting colored vertical lines across it. I also had to reformat my SD card at obviously one of the worst times to do so...lost a lot of good pictures that way. My suggestion, despite the good pics, buy a different brand or a better Kodak model.
Rating: Summary: The perfect camera for every day use! Review: As a teacher, I take a lot of pictures of my students. I have a classroom website and like to put pictures of various outings and activities on it to share with families. I did a lot of research because I wanted something that would be durable and easy to use at school but also satisfy my need for a good, affordable, convenient camera for my family. This had everything I was looking for wrapped up in one camera and it has lived up to every expectation! I have used it to take video, put up pictures on a website, taken pictures of my family & students, share pictures/video through email, and printed pictures that I have taken with this camera. None of them have disappointed me. The only thing that has frustrated me a bit has nothing to do with the camera, but with the software that comes with it. It is a bit archaic and does not always function correctly. And some key features were left off of the software such as a "select all" option when wanting to view many pictures in a row. But other than that, you cannot go wrong with this camera!
Rating: Summary: Excellent digital camera - very user-friendly! Review: I purchased this camera about two months ago. After browsing through the user manual & playing with the camera a bit the first night, I quickly had the key functions figured out. This camera is very easy to use...the function dials & buttons are clearly marked & easy to figure out. I did struggle to get some clear shots of close-up items at first, however once you figure out how to auto-focus before snapping your picture (simply press the shutter button down halfway to focus then press all the way to snap the picture) everything comes out crystal clear. The process of uploading images from the camera to the computer is simple, & the functions in the photo program that allow you to manipulate the images (crop, reduce red-eye, rotate, etc.) are easy to use. In addition to the camera being easy to operate, I was excited to see that the quality of the photos taken with it are excellent! I have had several friends tell me how impressed they were with the picture quality when I e-mailed them some of my first few pictures. So far I have not purchased the docking station, a memory card or any other accessories for my camera - only rechargeable batteries. I have found that I can take over 30 pictures using the internal camera memory before it is full & has to be uploaded to the computer so more pictures can be taken. I plan to buy a memory card eventually because 30 pictures won't get me far when I'm on vacation & am unable to upload the pictures off of the camera, but for now it works great for home use. Excellent digital camera - I would definitely recommend it! Although I have used digital cameras before at work, this is the first one I've owned. So far I am very pleased with my choice!
Rating: Summary: very good digital Review: we wanted to buy a digital for the nascar race we go to every yr here in indianapolis,let me tell you ,I was impressed.my hubby took great caution shot photos with this camera.all the photos were great! this was our first digital and I love it!I was worried because its not a 1000 dollar camera but we have gotten our money's worth and then some..I have taken lots and lots of photos,we bought a 128mb kodak sd card and that little thing can save up to 200 or more pictures.I get good prints from my printer.well I like it,if you are new at digital and don't need nothing printed at more than 11x14 then go for it..
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