Rating: 
Summary: Awesome Pics + Zoom, bad battery life
Review: The 850 has awesome features, especially considering the price. 4 megapixels and 8 x optical zoom combine to give you terrific pictures and more opportunities than if you had a much better known, but measly 3 x zoom camera. Buy a 3 x zoom and you will be wishing every day that you had more zoom!!! The HP offers only autofocus. There is significant shutter delay, so action shots might not come out exactly as planned. Of course, you can select Action mode to compensate. Macros look great and the zoom is really really terrific and picture quality is quite good. Acessories (lens, filters, adapter mounts etc) are not easily available, but tech support at a popular camera accessory store stated that they would have accessories in early 2003. Styling is retro, grip is just perfect and the metal tripod mount seems better than plastic ones. Start-up time is fast. Battery life is not so good with ordinary Alkalines, but when I switched to using NimH rechargables, I have been getting much much better life. Video is quite good and the best thing I like is the Electronic View Finder (EVF). I tried the Finepix 2800/3800 and couldn't see a thing when I used it indoors in medium to low lighting. The 850 EVF is so much better and clear. AutoFocus Illuminator is a big help and most Sony's have it, though most Nikons omit it. Kudos to HP for giving us a straight-forward camera with great features and more for a really reasonable price. I would definitely recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: It will eat the batteries !!
Review: The HP PS850 Digital Camera is a fantastic camera, Many functions that an experianced person would use and look for in a digital camera. But Buy the Docking Base with battery recharger... it will pay for itself over a very short period of time.
Rating:
Summary: Great Picture Quality! 8X optical zoom is fantastic!
Review: The HP850 is a great digital camera. I decided to buy this camera because for its price of $[money], you get a 4 megapixel,
8X optical zoom camera. I couldn't find anything else even close to this level of performance for price. You can also take short video clips with the camera, which is nice. The camera also lets you take pictures in rapid succession, even with the flash. I really like how quickly the flash can charge up and let you take the next shot. HP got it right with this camera design. It has a very nice look to it and feels well balanced in your hands. One thing you definitely need to do is get rechargable NiMH batteries for the camera though. It will quickly burn through normal Alkaline cells. It runs off of 4 AA cells (not 2), which is listed incorrectly on Amazon.com I found the battery life very long using 4AA NiMH batteries (1700 mAh capacity). Also, the camera can recharge NiMH AA cells in the camera (according to the manual) but I haven't tried it yet. So you just need to buy the HP AC adapter and you don't need a seperate battery charger. ( I wish I new this before buying a seperate battery charger :( My conclusion: The HP 850 is great!
Rating:
Summary: Re: a customer's review
Review: There is a firmware upgrade for the carema which fixes ALL of these problems.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent pics, user friendly but bulky
Review: This camera makes excellent pictures and is extremely user friendly although larger & heavier than most other digitals. Has a few settings (color & greater zoom) that the HP PS812 doesn't and will probably be my final choice for that reason. Upon receipt I noticed that there were pixels on the LCD display screen that were already bad(discolored). I have noticed that on a display model also so I returned the camera and am still weighing portability over features. Overall, great camera especially for novice wantabe professional photographers.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete tease!Takes spectacular photos; operates deplorably
Review: This camera when it works takes spectacular photographs. Superior quality. However, this camera's reliability in terms of operation is awful. It burns through batteries as if they were candy. I always have had to have extra batteries on hand. More significantly, the camera refuses to turn on at times (even with fresh batteries). It also refuses to retract its lenses when turned off sometimes as well. I am completely frustrated with this camera. It now refuses to work at all despite seemingly operating correctly. The quality of this product surprised me given my previous complete satisfaction with other HP products.
Rating:
Summary: Great zoom and pictures but questionable reliability
Review: This cammera is a really great value. For under 500$; a 4.1MP w/great zoom. It's very easy to use, and has a simple user interface. Despite this I've aldready had to replace it because of zoom malfunction, and also this is a rather fragile cammera
Rating:
Summary: elated
Review: This is my first digital camera, and I never had any idea the quality would be so good. The zoom is incrediable and the clarity is awesome. The macro amazed me how easy it is to get a closeup with detail. It is the best thing I have bought in a long time.
DJ
Rating:
Summary: Great control--great zoom
Review: This is my first digital camera, and the first DECENT camera I've ever owned. I LOVE IT! Works great right out of the box, although you'll need a bigger SD card (the one it comes with is SMALL, but not surprising for the price). I've had it for 4 months now, and have taken some really beautiful pics. Here are the compliments and complaints: -GREAT close-ups and macros.
-software bundle is TRULY wonderful, given the price.
-battery life is good, but get rechargables anyway--the camera starts to get weird when batteries are low (refuses to focus or unload images, even when showing there is still a charge).
-no wide-angle view! This is surprising, for a camera with this many other features.
-metal tripod mount.
-VERY easy to unload images (and I don't have the optional cradle).
-landscape pics lack some definition (may be my fault).
-low-light pics are VERY pixellated (common to all digitals, I gather, but still annoying).
-zoom works great--I can't imagine only having 3X!
-it's kinda big. Certainly not a pocket cam.
-the case that comes with the... 'package deal' is a little small, and the strap's not long enough. Charger works great, though. As the newly designated 'photographer' in my workplace, I get compliments on photo quality every time I post new pics--and it's certainly not due to my talent or experience! I highly recommend this camera, especically at such a great price.
Rating:
Summary: Complete tease!Takes spectacular photos; operates deplorably
Review: This is my first digital camera. I've had the camera for approximately 8 months. I have used it on two vacations and for family photo opportunities. So far I am very pleased with the camera and it's many functions. I could go on about all the good things but you, reading this, expect those things.
I have four things that I am having trouble adapting to after using a 35mm film camera for years.
1 - The screen going black and the delay in the shutter action really makes it difficult or almost impossible to take action shots. Even taking a standing animal or bird becomes hard because they move unpredictably. You can anticipate, and I'm getting better at that, but to visually follow a subject and take action pictures is impossible.
2 - The lense is super untill you get to the digital only point and then things get grainy. I now never use the digital section of the lense.
3 - It would really be nice to be able to manually focus. You can't.
4 - I would really like to put a polarizing lense on the camera but this is not easy to do and keep the "camera off" dimensions of the camera. Maybe HP has an adapter that will allow me to do this but "Camera World" in Portland did not know of any.
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