Rating: 
Summary: what you see is what you get
Review: I have the HP Photosmart R707 since a few weeks. This is my first digital photo camera. I bought the R707 because I want to take good pictures without worrying about all the manual control menu options and features. Point and shoot. However with this camera I do have those other options available for more experimenting when I want to.My experience so far: I've taken pictures indoors and outdoors, sometimes in difficult situations like a bright light in the background of the subject or high contrast pictures alternating bright sunshine and dark shadows and I have loaded these into iPhoto within Mac OS X 10.3.4 I've also tried out the video recording feature. Positive points:
The body is small, compact, easy to hold, it feels and looks classy. The buttons are easily reached and a number of options can be chosen by using the buttons without needing to scroll through menu items on the LCD display. The LCD display can be dimmed or brightened in 3 steps, enough to read well in bright sunshine. The R707 comes with 32MB RAM built in, so I can take 17 high resolution pictures (5.1 MB with middle strength compression i.e. 2 stars) without even inserting an sd card. The menu items are well organised and it is easy and fast to find the manual control I'm looking for. The optical zoom is good and the picture quality can be excellent. The level of details in the pictures is often surprisingly good. The imaging technology, for example the HP Adaptive Lighting, gives me peace of mind that my picture has a good chance of being accurately taken exactly as I see it through the viewfinder. The motto "what you see is what you get" seems difficult to achieve without professional cameras and photography knowledge, but the HP R707 manages this quite well indeed. Playback and viewing of pictures and video is easy and you can browse through thumbnails of the pictures or instead enlarge each picture to better control the quality of each shot. The in-camera red-eye removal works very well. The Image Advice feature is helpful in explaining what you can do to take better pictures next time. Video recording is very easy, just press one button to record. The quality of the recordings is fine for a camera, but not comparable to the greatly superior image and sound quality of dv cams. I didn't test the included software, because I didn't load it, as my iMac instantly recognized the R707 and iPhoto automatically launched and I just needed to click the "import" button in the software. You may want to read more at Digitalmagasinet.dk, which has an excellent English review of the HP R707. They compared it to the Canon IXUS S500, and the R707 won in most categories, especially price/quality ratio. Negative points: 1) no case is delivered with the R707. You need to buy this extra. 2) I often use the optical zoom, but then the aperture can go to a minimum of f8.4 m, the consequence is I often need to use the flash, almost always when indoors. 3) the view finder doesn't show any menu items, so when the LCD display is not available due to low battery and you want to change the menu settings, you have to do this blindly. 4) the more manual controls and active filters you use, the longer it takes to process a photo and write it to memory. You can take another picture after 1-2 seconds, while the processing of the previous picture is still in progress, as long as the in-camera 32MB memory is not full. 5) Battery recharging can take a few hours. 6) The camera can heat up when in use for longer periods of time. In the Image Advice Screen some photos mentioned something like "camera was too hot, this can impact photo quality". Conclusion: I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of use and the quality of the camera. The price I paid was less than that of a new but no longer produced Canon Digital Ixus 400 (Powershot S400) in discount stores. It is difficult to get better quality at a lower price than the HP Photosmart R707. I recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it!
Review: I just bought the r707 a few weeks ago, and I LOVE it. I spent a lot of time researching and I would have never thought of getting an HP, but I finally decided to get this camera after testing it in the store. It replaced a 2 megapixel canon elph, which produced average pictures. The interface for this camera is much more user-friendly than my old elph, and the pictures are gorgeous too--the colors are sharp and crisp. It's just so fun to use! You do need to take advantage of the many modes and setting options to get beautiful images in all conditions (low light etc) but it's not hard to do that and worth the effort. It also does really well with action shots.
Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect...
Review: I live in Southern California and spent December in England, Wales and Scotland. I wanted a camera that could handle my usual sunny weather as well as the grey and cloudy. HP707 did MUCH better than expected. I couldn't be any more satisified. It was more than I had wanted to pay, but I don't regret a cent.
What's good:
-ease of use. With all the cameras I looked at, I didn't really need the instructions until I was fine-tuning and looking for advice.
-the scene modes. In particular the sunset mode. It brings out reds, greens and blues, but the shots were great 93% of the time. Imagine taking pictures of the stonework of castles, the Roman wall and all the other touristy stuff. (My film camera didn't fare so well, the camera took a lot more time to set up, and I had to think a lot about the settings.)
-both optical and digital zoom are AWESOME!
-the camera picks up amazing detail. It's hard to explain, but things I didn't notice at the British museum in the hieroglyphics and Greek carvings, as well as the mummy exhibit were so obvious once I viewed them on the computer.
-downloading to the computer couldn't be any easier. (I use iPhoto)
-you can put a lot of thought into a shot or none at all. For action shots, the camera did fairly well. For general on the street shots, the camera did very well. And for the shots I wanted to play with and try different settings and aperatures, it was perfect. I could delete what really didn't work and play with things even a little more once I got them on the computer.
What didn't quite work:
- the camera has a hard time focusing in low light. Just for safety, I took two or thee shots of some things but even that didn't always work. (Still had a better average than the film camera)
- you will run the battery down before you fill the memory card up. Careful about turning the camera on and off. As per the maker's suggestions, it's also a good idea to not have the view screen on.
-when you turn the camera off it goes back to auto settings. It takes time to flip back to the settings you want and if you forget to reset, you don't get the photos you want.
-the cover for the computer and recharger port is really flimsy. Other reviews have said this but it wasn't until I got the camera that I understood.
I will still travel with my SLR but I carry my digital camera around with me every day now.
My only recomendation is don't forget your recharger. They do have an adaptor available in England that works with the HP707, but it's expensive and not easy to find. Trust me.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably Awesome!
Review: I was one of the first people to purchase this camera from my local Office Depot. I was taken aback by how much enthusiasm the salesperson had for this camera. After I purchased it, I can see why he was excited. This camera is sheer brilliance! The panarama feature alone is worth the price of the camera. I switched the panarama mode on and took a 5 picture wide angle shot of my front yard and after a few seconds I had a picture that looked like it was taken by a National Geographic photographer. This camera has it all! Who ever said that Hewlett Packard can only make printers has clearly never used this camera. Finally, a camera on the market that trully lives up to the hype!
Rating:
Summary: Time to move on up
Review: It was time to get out of the 2 megapixel life and it was time to go for it: 5.1 megapixels of pure joy. I love this little camera, it is so small and so easy to use. I really like the polished steel front and the feel of the rubberized backing. The menu is very very easy to use and the "adaptive light" technology really adjusts for shots that are in the dark or shadows. I still do not have many things down but it is really easy and fun and it downloads into !Photo perfectly. I just need to buy a case but with the cool dock which keeps and extra battery charged I must say that from here on out taking pics will be smooth sailing sailor!
Rating:
Summary: How easy can it get
Review: Looking for a digital camera, then look no more. hp has made the world of digital for the average person so easy to use and the results are unbelievable. My wife was fighting the digital revolution, but not anymore. This small, easy to use camera has everything the novis photographer needs and the results look professional. The prints we made using the hp photo printer are just as good if not better than the old drug store way we did it before.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the last
Review: My father has an HP Photosmart 935 camera that he's used since Christmas. He uses it constantly, and the prints look great even on 8x10 because of his Photosmart printer and the camera's high resolution. After months of hearing from him how I should have a digital camera, also, I finally relented and went to CompUSA to get a 935 of my own when my tax check came back (not bad for filing on April 15th!). The store rep told me that if I liked the 935, I would love the R707. He's right! Instead of the one set of rechargeable's my dad got with his dock, I have two (one came with the camera, the other with the dock - which can charge them both at the same time), and they're LiIon instead of NiMH. I still haven't recharged the first after using it for around a hundred pictures during my company's golf outing. I took a panoramic shot of one of the holes at the golf course, and the software that comes with the camera made it very simple to put together and print out. When I go on vacation this summer I'm going to get some great use out of that function. In the meantime, the two things I'm using the most are the In-Camera Red Eye Removal and the Image Advice. With the Red Eye Removal, instead of having the obnoxious multiple-time flash that we've grown used to with film cameras, the red eyes are removed after the camera takes the picture. If you see some red-eye, you just select to remove it, and the camera finds the mistake, asks you if it's ok to change, and the redness disappears. If you don't notice it right away, the Image Advice will even alert you to it! I'm not quite a novice, but not really a camera pro, either. The Image Advice you can select after the picture is taken really helps you get the perfect picture. If something looks too dark, or too bright, or the colors are just plain wrong (like when you set the White Balance to Tungsten or Sun instead of Auto, and then go somewhere else), the Image Advice tells you how to get a better shot by changing ISO speeds, turning on the awesome Digital Flash feature (no more need to Dodge & Burn in PhotoShop!), etc. The people in my office think I'm a pro after they downloaded my pictures from HP's photo site, but between you and me I just did what Image Advice told me to. Combine these features with the smaller, metal cased housing that the R707 has compared to the 935, and I've got myself one hell of a camera, and a jealous dad to go along with it!
Rating:
Summary: with some pros and cons
Review: pros:
1. compact. even though not the smallest, I had no problem kept it in my pant pocket, together with my cell phone.
2. adaptive lighting works. in some light condition it does make a difference, and this is why I purchased this camera
3. resolution, exposure, battery life, features, are all fine. see online reviews from web sites like dpreview.com
cons:
1. video mode has too much noise. usable outdoor, but terrible indoor.
2. response speed so so. if you took a photo, you can take another one while it's processing or writing to the card, but can't record a video clip until it finishes processing the photo.
3. this is minor, but I do hope the battery could be charged in the camera when connected using the usb cable. It only charges when you plug in the ac/dc adapter.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Camera!
Review: This is a great camera. In 5+MP cameras I've tried the Canon Powershot S500, Casio QV-R51, and a Fuji FinePix, but this is the best one. Pros:
Picture quality is crystal clear, battery life is very good, and I didn't even need to read the instructions to it. There are helpful explanations of all the options on the bottom of the screen so you know exactly what terms such as "saturation" and "EV" mean. I've taken pictures on the streets of NY, at the beach, at an indoor wedding, and at a restaurant. All my pictures of people were true to life, indoor pictures with low light came out well focused, and outdoor pictures had brilliant colors. Printed pictures are AMAZING. The short movie I made came out very good and with clear sound, but the clip was small. I didn't buy this camera to make TV sized movies anyway. Some metal cameras don't perform well if you constantly change climates, but I took it to the sandy beach, to NYC, to windy Chicago, and then to hot humid Houston and it performed solid in all those conditions. I have not tried extreme cold though. For all that, I think the price is well worth it. Cons:
No case or SD card included.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful little camera
Review: This is my third digital camera. I have owned a Fuji FinePix and a Pentax Optio S4. This camera performs so much better than either one of those. The good points: Great video, crystal clear images, super easy to use, removes red eye after pic is taken, adaptive lighting really works, good battery life. The bad points: a little slower than some cameras when it comes to processing images(but it is worth it), no case or SD card (seems to be a trend with most digitals). I researched this camera and the Canon Powershot S410 and S500. When comparing the two, the HP had 2 or 3 better features than the Canon. I was hesitant about buying the HP, because it was so new that there was not a lot of customer feedback. I guess the selling point that just made my decision easier was the red eye in camera removal, since I take lots of close ups of my children. I am so happy with my purchase. I would recommend this camera to anyone. The auto features make picture taking a no-brainer, but if you do want to get creative, you can adjust almost anything, in the manual mode. A+++
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