Rating: Summary: Best for the Price Review: This camera is the best one for the price. I searched for months to find the best value in a digital camera under $400, and I chose this one. The picture quality is great, with 3 different quality settings. This is a great camera for beginners or those of us on a limited budget. Besides, next year those $1000 cameras will be outdated anyhow.
Rating: Summary: Great Value! Review: As an entry level digital camera, this is a great value. For $299 I wasn't expecting miracles, but I've been very impressed so far with this camera. Photo quality indoors, even at the lowest resolution, is amazingly good for Web work. Outdoors photos can sometimes get a little washed out, typically in very high contrast situations. Other reviewers have mentioned their frustration with very short battery life. I too experienced this for the first few days. Expecting the 500 photos per set of 4 AA batteries the manual told of, I was very disappointed when I got maybe 30-35 shots before having to put in fresh batteries! I later learned that two things contributed to the short battery life. (1) Constant use of the flash. This situation can be fixed by turning off the auto flash when not needed, especially in most outdoor situations. (2) Constant use of the LCD screen. I thought it was cool at first, that you didn't even have to use the viewfinder--just frame your shots on the LCD! Come to find out, doing this sucks the life out of the batteries super fast. So use the traditional viewfinder to take pictures; if you're not sure how the picture came out and want to review it, use the LCD screen. Lately, following the two rules above, I've been getting 200-300 pictures per set of batteries--including about 30-50 with the flash on. This is perfectly acceptable. HP's $50 AC adapter should be priced at about $9.99. Instead, buy yourself a good quality set of rechargeable batteries and a charger (you can find them for about $30). This is a much more flexible solution that an AC adapter, especially if you get the 12 volt adapter for the charger so you can charge your batteries while on the road!
Rating: Summary: No AC Adapter! Review: If you get this camera, make sure you get a bloody AC adapter with it. The camera will eat new batteries in a day, and the adapter itself is imposible to find. The HP web page will not warn you of this, and charges $50 for an adapter. I hate HP right now.
Rating: Summary: great deal excellant quality Review: I have had the C200 for 2 weeks now and have not had a battery problem, or any other problem. The sales person suggested using lithium batterys for longer life but I haven't had any problems with the alkaline one's yet. I am very pleased with the picture quality and have had many people look at my photos and couldn't believe they came from a digital camera. The software was easy to load and just what I was looking for.
Rating: Summary: Not as good as other similarly priced cameras Review: I also received a deal that allowed me to get afree 15 MB flash card with the camera which made it appear to be abetter deal. However, the photo quality was not that great and the camera itself a little clunky. I wasn't satisfied with the camera at all. I did, however find a wonderful camera that I like a lot. Try the Olympus D-340R for similar pricing with better quality photos.
Rating: Summary: Good entry level camera Review: Nice picture quality and easy to use. This unit doesn't include the external power supply, so I would buy one or a card reader for downloading the photos to your PC - or if you are buying a photo printer, too, the HP models (1000, 1100) have a built in card reader. Downloading drains the batteries quickly. I like the color LCD for reviewing your pictures and the megapixel resolution produces nice, photo quality shots with good detail.
Rating: Summary: pretty good camera for not much $$ Review: I personally hate developing film, so I went hunting for a digital camera. This one was the best value that I found. It's cheap, and the picture quality is good enough for me (email/web). The autofocus is kinda weird (half-depress to focus, press the rest of the way to shoot), the resolution is always 72 dpi, there really are only 2 sizes (1152x870 & 576x436), and to review pictures you have to turn off the camera. On the good side, indoor pictures are, IMO, perfectly fine. The flash works well, and illuminates well. Outdoor pix are kinda washed out, and the autofocus doesn't seem to work real well outside. Besides that, it's definitely worth it.
Rating: Summary: HP C200 is great Review: I bought my C200 about a month ago, and have taken about 100 pictures so far. Overall, they are outstanding, especially for a camera at this price. I find the flash is not quite as strong as I would like, though. The software works wells and is easy to use also. After 100 shots, I still am using the original alkaline batteries that came with the camera, and the battery indicator shows that the batteries are still nearly fully-charged. The time to download photos directly from the camera to the PC takes FOREVER, so I bought a Sandisk Imagemate USB Compactflash External Drive, and it is great. It downloads 16mb of images in just a few seconds. I have found when using the 2X zoom, the picture quality is poor, but in all other respects, I can heartily recommend this camera.
Rating: Summary: What a value! Review: I recently finished an exhausting search for a new camera and settled on the HP based on a recommendation by Amazon and the fact that I was becoming utterly confuesed by all of the choices in the marketplace. THIS CAMERA IS A GREAT DEAL! the picture quality is fine for most things and setup was easy enough, although remember to open the lens cover when connecting the camera to your computer. I was emailing pictures of my friend's new dog minutes after opening the box.
Rating: Summary: Good for the price Review: I bought this camera as an entry into digital photography. I know it isn't the greatest but it's a good start. Why pay a fortune for a camera when technology moves so fast? Just buy a new one next year. By the way, as an alternative to paying for an adapter why not just buy a compact flash external drive which is much faster than the serial connection anyway. I had a problem with installing the software because I have a 2 year old computer and there was a problem with a DLL. Just a quick call to HP and they fixed it. (The fix needs to be posted on their web site - I can't be the only one with a dinosaur). I haven't had the camera long enough for a thorough review but it looks good so far. (Battery usage has not been a problem.)
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