Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Camera
Review: I purchased this camera to replace an older 2 mp Olympus camera, This model was chosen because of the 8x optical zoom. I also looked for things like standard batteries and memory card type and price (by the way the camera manual says 128mb is the max card size, I am using 256mb ok.) Any one tried a 512mb???
The camera has been the answer to my needs, the picture quality is excellent, the zoom range suits my needs very well and battery life is better than I expected. Since I already had about 5 sets of AA NiMh batteries for the Olympus and 2 chargers, I thought I would need about 3 sets for a days shooting, so far I have shot about 400 shots, 115 shots on 1 set of batteries. Most of these have been without flash however. The only thing that has taken some getting used to is the view finder, the Olympus had an optical view finder which was not thru the lens, the electronic thru the lens finder and the fact it appears to lock up during the picture taking is going to take some getting used to. The audio and short video clip functions also are a neat addition to this unit.
I expecially like the warranty (I ordered the extended warranty with physical damage replacement direct from HP and I would recomend this for your consideration).
I also purchased the HP Photosmart 7350 printer and the photos are almost 35mm quality. Very Very Good!!!
All in all an excellent camera
Rating:
Summary: Great price for an awesome camera...
Review: I really love the quality of pictures on this camera, very crisp and clear. Comparisons to my old Nikon Coolpix 800 (2MP) are not even close. The Nikon was a great camera, but double the Megapixel and quadriple the zoom, and you have an amazing piece of hardware.I made my decision to purchase this camera after comparing to the Fuji 3800 and Olympus C-730. I went to the store and physically picked up the cameras, the Fuji and Olympus were kind of awkward. The HP is large (I have man's hands after all! :) ) and feels like a quality camera. Now, all is not perfect, as many have noted. The cons of this camera include a limit of 60 seconds for video clips... now I have a 256MB SD card, and it can handle a lot of video, why only 60 seconds! HP please get a firmware update to allow unlimited video! Also, the included SD card is wimpy for a 4MP camera, offered a special when I bought this on other SD cards...plus SD memory is dropping in price daily. Get the largest SD card you can afford, you will not be sorry. Focus, you must have a steady hand to focus in 8x Optical zoom! I find that the Digital zoom is almost as good as an optical zoom as well, if you have a tripod. It gets a decent picture, not perfect, but much better than the Digital zoom on the 2MP cameras I have used. Also, I picked up the docking station. This is a great feature, no manually hooking up a cable and starting to offload pictures, just plonk your camera down on the dock, press the button to either print or send to computer and it is all automatic. Overall, I think this is a great camera, and would suggest it highly. Hopefully HP keeps it up to date with firmware updates, as I would love to see faster focusing, and a mode which allows 'burst' type pictures to be taken. Even allowing different video sizes to be taken and having an opion to turn audio off on videos would be great.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Camera
Review: I say, "Buy a camera with a good lens...it brings the light in."
This HP850 really takes good pictures. I get close up of flowers, great detail, and yesterday I captured a Blue Heron in flight. I am a point and shoot amateur, getting results that are turning heads.
Rating:
Summary: Best Camera Value Under $500
Review: I was looking for a digital camera for a loooooong time, but did not want one that could only make a decent print the size of a postage stamp. Being a long time SLR user, I always wished there was a digital camera that would come close to the prints that would come close to prints from 35mm film. For the longest time, that meant upwards of $1000. Until now. I am quite pleased with this camera because of its convenience (lcd screen) but with its images as well. I particularly love the features of choice of resolution (4mp & 1mp, like two cameras in one) and choosing full color, black & white, and sepia tone. You will have to buy a charger and batteries and more memory cards because a 16 mb SD chip will only hold SIX hi-res pix. I would like to have a faster shutter speed, especially for action photos such as wild life but do not let that stop you form the best camera investment on the market,especailly with the 8x optical zoom.
Rating:
Summary: Take your time.
Review: I've had this camera now for over a year and it is awesome. First of all to the people complaining about the battery life, you must have a faulty unit because my batteries last forever. I am always taking pictures and very rarely have to change batteries. I spent 4 days in Vegas and the Grand Canyon last year and took over 600 pictures and never even had to replace the batteries and that was also with constantly looking at the pictures on the screen and downloading them to my laptop without using a power adaptor. The pictures I have taken are awesome but you need to take the time to learn the camera options. For example you need to learn when to use the flash or change the shutter speed to get good shots. Its not complicated but most people don't bother to do this and then complain about poor pictures. Its your own fault. I even had a professional photographist complement pictures I have taken with this camera. The zoom is awesome. I have taken pictures of things over 1500 feet away and they look crystal clear. If you take your time and learn to use the many features of the camera you will be extremely happy with the results.
Rating: 
Summary: Digicams still an immature product offering
Review: If you don't have a pressing reason to buy digital right now, I suggest you wait another year. I have used several friends and family member's cameras, and purchased the 850, all have problems. Biggest disappointment with this camera for me is image quality. Almost every shot has purple fringing, and clarity is a bit less than my father's fuji 3800 (3MPixels), and brother's year old Cannon 3Mpixel/3x camera. This is true even at ISO 100, on a tripod, with good light -- even worse otherwise. Other people's complaints are all true too: Cranky zoom, Software Crashes, etc. One thing not mentioned is that you can't adjust the LCD display for viewing angle. If you are above the camera (like if you set it on the floor to take a picture) you can't see the display. "Auto" white balance is not really auto, "fixed" would be more like it. If you are under electric lights, you have to change setting manually to get good color. Battery life complaint is not valid though. Get good batteries (1800mah or >), and they will normally last all day, then plug camera in to ac adapter at night and you are ready to go in the morning, don't even have to remove batteries. One really nice thing is unlike other cameras, simply plugging the camera into the computer will download all the pictures with NO intervention required on your part. Despite my gripes, this seems like the best the state of the art has to offer at this time and price point for overall issues I care about, and is good enough to switch away from film for. To get a really nice camera right now it seems you have to spend about $...., sigh.
You may want to consider fuji s602 though. Some discounters sell it for around $.... Wish list: Eliminate digital zoom. Full manual control using SLR type barrel rings. Who needs a motor to zoom? Costs more, works worse. HP EVF better than most, but still worse than instamatic like glass view finder. Save the money, keep it simple. Should take larger memory cards, limited to 128M.
Rating:
Summary: Superb; a nice surprise
Review: In one word, superbe. This camera is a nice surprise. It took less than one half hour to learn to use this camera. By comparison, it took me several days to learn to use a similar but more "sophisticated" Sony camera at work. The camera's onscreen menu is simple and easy to understand. You should read and refer to the manual carefully because there are small tips and pointers no evident on the menus. For example, to save special settings, power up will pressing the "okay" button. The PS850's software interface is fast and transfers pictures quickly to your PC. The zoom lens does take some getting used to, it works in one speed and you have to learn to use you thumb instead of an index finger, but it is managable. There will be a very pronounced pause after each picture is taken as it writes to the memory card and the screen will remain blank. No multiple actions shots here, but it's not that type of camera. Both the EVP and the 8x lens is sharp, the white balance is great. The auto focus lamp for low light situations is a great addition, which is not found in similar priced cameras, the Fuji 3800, is one example. The PS850's case is not made from extruded metal, it does not have the quality feel of the Nikon Coolpix 5700 or a Minolta Dimage 7Hi, but it comes at half the price. If the PS850 is being sold as a bundle with the accessory kit for free. Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Not as Good as Other HP's I've Had
Review: Let me first say that I usually like HP Photosmart devices: Cameras, Printers, etc. This is my third Photosmart camera. It has a number of pluses: 1) An optical zoom that flows right into the digital zoom (and with up to 56X you can really get close), 2) An easy-to-use display menu, 3) A viewfinder that adjusts to ones particular eye strength. On the negative side: 1) It takes too long to take a picture (after you press the shutter release, it is 2-4 seconds before you can take another picture (I do not know if this causes one to get blurry pictures, but at the 2.0 megapixel size (1.2 MB) for this camera and my HP 912, I had fewer blurry pictures with my HP 912 Photosmart camera), 2) You have to be within an inch of the viewfinder before it "turns on" (you can have the view show on the large display, but that uses more energy, and you still don't see if it is focused right), 3) It allows for several focus points, but even after adjusting to a center one, I still had some pictures where the background was in focus, but my subject wasn't. I know that I'll probably be in the minority of the reviewers, but to sum it up, if I had it all over to do again, I wouldn't get this particular camera. About the same time as I got this camera, I bought the HP Photosmart 720 as a gift for my step-daughter. While it doesn't have anywhere the zoom power of the 850 and only has 3.3 megapixels, it also doesn't have the other problems with the 850 that I mentioned above.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother buying this Item
Review: Looks nice !!!
You can't own enough batteries to make this thing work for any small amount of time..
with charging dock and full batteries.. this will suck the energy out before you get 10 shots off.. then you need to shut down and wait till it gives enough energy to take more pictures..
Have found this to be a major pain in the Butt...
Lucky to get a dozen shots and forget about using the MPEG mode.
I should send the entire package back as one big load of garbage.
Rick - FLWineGuy
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been the worlds best mid priced digital camera
Review: Takes excellent pictures sometimes. Wonderful zoom lens.Intuitive menu system. Nice flash. Takes nice movies as good or better maybe even than my nikon 5700. Forget about taking still pictures of anything that moves. Other reviews coverd this topic and i agree with them. As far as i could tell there was no manual focus option. That would have solved a lot of problems i think. When i tried to use aperature priorty mode, i was looking for a workaround the focus problems. Sometimes camera would lock up when i did this and you couldnt turn it off even with the main switch. You had to remove the batteries. I managed to take a picture of a humming bird with this camera but it took about 8 attempts. He was a cooperative hummingbird i guess.
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