Rating: 
Summary: Best Value for Casual Digital Enthusiast
Review: This is the "all-around" best digital camera for the casual digital enthusiast. It small enough to fit in your pocket, but rich enough in features and resolution to give you years of great memory capture. The 3x optical zoom is the best reason to buy. It's enough zoom to shorten most distance shots, but not so much zoom that you have a bulky lens. The lens retracts behind a sliding shutter that keeps it cleans and safe from lens scratches while in your pocket. The viewing screen is sharp and clear, and displays the additional zooming feature of the 2.5x digital zoom. And because it's a 2.1 megapixel, these digitally zoomed shots retain their clarity. Only drawback to this camera is a manual flip up flash. One less thing to break, but causes you to miss some shots by not remembering to flip it up, (not a reason not to buy however). Buy the 32mb SmartMedia card to get 70 shots on high quality mode. And if you can, buy the Camedia Floppy Disc Drive adapter for transerring your shots at high speed from the SmartMedia card to your PC.
Rating:
Summary: This camera rocks!
Review: I bought this camera last weekend and also a Sandisk Smartmedia usb reader. I have already taken 60 pictures. The immediate gratification of sending pictures to my friends and family without the waiting for development is incredible. The software that comes with the camera is excellent and easy to use. I need to use Adobe photoshop, however, to reduce the picture size for my friends with dial up connections. This camera takes pictures that gives a great slide show on a 36" TV with the included cable. With the USB card reader you can load pictures for TV viewing (Slick). The 8 meg card is good for a 15 second video. I am getting 20 stills on the 8 meg card. I am going to buy a 64 meg card this weekend. A previous poster said that the card reader saved battery life and it seems to be true. There is a rebate offer now for a free card reader but I couldn't wait. The free card reader will make a great Christmas present (late!) for your friends or family with a Diamond Rio. For those posters that complained about installation problems, buy a DELL computer.
Rating:
Summary: One outstanding camera
Review: This is a great little camera. The pictures were execellent in the HQ and SHQ modes (1600x1200), the SQ mode (640x480) was okay for posting on the web. I have a 35mm Olympus XA2 which is almost the same size so I am comfortable with the D490Zoom. If you're the type of person who's in a rush all the time you might want to get a different camera as you do have to wait a few "long seconds" for the lens to come out or go back in when open/close the front sliding lens cover. It isn't a big deal for me. Also the flash doesn't present a problem to me and I like the fact that I can control if it is up or down. You do have to be careful when closing the sliding lens cover (but I haven't lost a lens cap yet either). The only negative I found was that the manual mentioned the 5 modes but didn't say how to get to SQ-HIGH and SHQ-TIFF. But there was a smaller quick-start booklet that tells you to hold on the up arrow for 2 seconds to get to the other two modes. I found the menus (one for picture-taking and one for pictrue-viewing) real easy to navigate thru and the icons made sense to me (kind of scary). I ordered the bare camera and not the extras.
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera for the Price
Review: After using this camera for the last few weeks I found that it has exceeded my expectations. The camera has enough nice features to make it a pleasure to use without overwhelming the user with too much configurability. The two things I like about the camera the most are the ability to take rapid sequence pictures and the quality of the flash. The rapid sequence capability allows you to take actions shots (like kids playing soccer) without the standard 2-3 second delay. The camera has an onboard cache that allows HQ quality pictures to be taken at a sub-second rate. The flash is adequate at illuminating an entire room with enough light to capture a quality picture. Accessories that I have found useful are 2 sets of rechargable batteries, Viking USB reader for the flash card and another flash card.
Rating: 
Summary: Good camera, bad design
Review: The camera works well, has really nice fit and finish. It's light, easy to use, fast, and straight forward. The lens is protected by a sliding door. This is kind of cool. You open the sliding door to turn the camera on in "capture" mode. When you open the sliding door, a motor extends the lens out from the body about .5 inches. This is all great. HOWEVER, to power off the camera and return to "review" mode, you slide the door part-way shut. The problem is, if you're not extremely careful, the door jams into the extended lens, and the lens _skids_ back into the body against the door. Once the lens is fully retracted, you can close the door completely. I gave it two stars because all the goodness of this camera will be lost when your lens motor burns out because the motorized lens was rubbing against the door. *sigh* The Camera's great, but it's door/power switch design has much to be desired.
Rating: 
Summary: D-490 Win ME user
Review: Had the camera about 2 weeks and it works flawlessly. IT NEEDS A USB capability but works great with the Camedia software supplied with the camera. The pics are fantastic. The serial download takes forever so grab that USB card reader with your purchase. I'd buy it again in a second.
Rating:
Summary: Affordable 2+ Megapixel Digital Camera
Review: First off, i would like to suggest that the writer of the previous review check which product he or she is bashing before posting a review with starred ratings. The Olympus D490 camera is worth your wait. I have been watching the market, waiting for the digital camera that would take high quality photos and would be balanced as a camera. I have broken the plusses and minuses of the review below for your reading ease Plusses + Size (At first I was almost dissapointed that the camera was so small. I have been used to seeing digital cameras that were huge and unweildy. The D490 Actually is the same size as film using relatives in the Olympus family. If you use the optical viewfinder instead of the LCD screen, most people wont have a clue that you even are using a digital camera) + Ease of use (The D490 is very easy to use. The included software makes downloading the images easy, and the camera operates like any other regular camera.) + Pictures (The pictures are beautiful. They are huge and vivid.) + Speed (The camera uses a RAM buffer to store the images temporarily as they are written to the EEPROM Chip. What this means is that you are able to take multiple photos while the camera is writing the pictures to memory. This is a marked advantage over the D460, and is discussed in another user's review) + Reliability (I've had it a few months, never had a problem yet.) + Movies! (This camera takes 15 second high quality movies! It also has an option to take low quality 60 second movies, however since the high quality movies only have a resolution of 320 by 240, the low quality ones really are worthless... for reference i think they are 160 by 120) Minuses - Software problems (I think it may just be the software i got since i havent heard anyone else complain in this area, but my camedia software cannot splice together the panoramic shots.... oh well... i didnt buy the camera solely for this purpose so it doesnt bother me so much) - Movies dont have sound - Lack of USB connectivity (This feature is a must these days, and although i did get a Viking USB card reader, it would have been a great feature to add one into the camera to begin with) Overall i think this camera is GREAT. Digital cameras are still a bit pricey for most people, and really the consumer is still paying a hefty chunk of the R+D costs instead of the manufacturing costs, however when a company produces such a high quality product such as this one, i dont really mind it. If you want a digital camera buy this one.
Rating:
Summary: impressive!
Review: After reading reviews posted below I deicded D490 to be my first digital camera. I took advices to go out buy a Delkin reader-4 ..., 8 NiMh batteries..., a charger ..., one 32MB smart media card ..., Microsoft Picture it ... all at local Fry store. The result is hundreds of great outdoor photos and few family movies over this thankgiving weekend. Comparing to my other SLR Olympus camera baught at over ... used with a scanner, this camera does comes out greater pictures on the computer screen, plus it's lots more efficient and convenient. The ability to instantly view zoomed new shots surprises friends and kids too. This is a great product at this price.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Camera For The Money
Review: I am an absolutely electronically disadvantaged so was on the lookout for a great camera that was easy to use, and didn't cost an arm and a leg. This camera met both criteria quite easily and takes phenomenal photos. On my personal website Italian Food Forever, I like to put photos online with each of my recipes, and the photos I take with this camera have gotten many compliments. Although I still haven't investigated all the various options available with this camera, I found I was able to use it and take exceptional photos after a brief run through of the manual. If you are looking for a great camera at a reasonable price, that doesn't take a physic's degree to operate, I would suggest looking into buying this one.
Rating:
Summary: Great, Not Perfect
Review: When I bought this camera I thought it was going to be a perfect little digital camera. Well it's not. It does usually take great pictures, and it closes up nicely, fitting right into my pocket. It seems to take blurry pictures in low light a little more often then my 1 year old Olympus D360, which I thought was pretty surprising and pretty disappointing. The other thing I don't like is the flash seems a bit flimsy; like I might break it off opening it too quickly. With this camera be sure to get a case, more memory (the Viking 64 meg smartmedia chip here on Amazon looks good), a usb memory reader, a lense cleaning supplies. I'm not saying enough good things here. This camera does take mostly great pictures, and quickly!
| 
