Rating: 
Summary: It Survives
Review: O.k., I recently purchased this camera and haven't had a chance to really put it through its paces. While vacationing over the New Year's holiday I had unknowingly dropped my new camera in the snow. Luckily, I knew the general area were it probabaly fell out. I found it after searching frantically for about 45 minutes. Dried it off, and ta-da! It worked with the photos I took intact! I'm sold...
Rating: 
Summary: Wished I had this when I was in Europe!!!
Review: Olympus has a great reputation with their 35mm and now that reputation is passed on to their digital cameras.
The camera feels very sturdy except for the shutter door which I do agree needs a new design.
However after the initial akwardness of the shutter door, it doesn't become much of a big deal. You just get used to it.What's great is that the pictures turn out ABSOLUTELY WONDERFULL if you choose
the HQ (high quality) or SQ function which takes up a bit of memory. Therefore I highly recommend getting
a 128MB smart media card which lets you take 173 photos and short 30 seconds movie clips (no sound)!
Also I do recommend getting the rechargeable battery and adaptor because the LCD eats up all your battery juice. I do recommend this camera if you are thinking of getting a digital camera that is reliable and affordable.
It has a lot of potential and features that you can explore but I'm a point-and-shoot type of person.
Rating:
Summary: Good camera--BUT e-mail? Forget it
Review: One week into owning, and the camera is very good for daylight photos. I agree with everyone about the hopeless manual. Most images are too small to read without a magnifying glass. Biggest problem, and the telephone techs seem to have no answers, is trying to attach photos to e-mails. I have a new iMac, with OS 9.2, but none of the pdf. manual instructions work when trying to transfer to a folder.If e-mailing photos is your main interest, do research this problem before committing. (and DO buy rechageable batteries and a camera case)
Rating: 
Summary: Save your $$$$$
Review: Photo's are good, but software ain't. I've owned the Camedia 550 for a little over a year. I am very disapointed in the software that you HAVE to use with this camera. I upgraded to the "professional" edition, but it's still bad. It does not alow you to back up your photo's onto CD. (Floppy Disk Only, which is worthless). Also I have pixels dying on my viewing screen.
It is difficult to manuver through the options on the camera. Also uses a Smart Media Card, which the new ones do not use, and very few new camera do use, so I'll be stuck with $200 bucks worth of Smart Media Cards when I decide to chuck this thing.
Rating:
Summary: Save your $$$$$
Review: Photo's are good, but software ain't. I've owned the Camedia 550 for a little over a year. I am very disapointed in the software that you HAVE to use with this camera. I upgraded to the "professional" edition, but it's still bad. It does not alow you to back up your photo's onto CD. (Floppy Disk Only, which is worthless). Also I have pixels dying on my viewing screen.
It is difficult to manuver through the options on the camera. Also uses a Smart Media Card, which the new ones do not use, and very few new camera do use, so I'll be stuck with $200 bucks worth of Smart Media Cards when I decide to chuck this thing.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the D-510 but still has one flaw
Review: The Camedia line continues to be a great all around camera for the average person to use. I bought this one after using my father Camedia D-510 extensively. It is simply and easy to use, with a basic manual that answers your questions. The onscreen directions are usuable, but could have been better. I havefound the pictures to be quite clear as I expected. It was easy to use on pick up, I only went to the manual occasionally to find specific features or answers. Forget those Mac switch ads: It is VERY easy to transfer your pictures to the PC via a USB cable. They fixed one thing in this regard in that you have to activate the camera when plugged in to transfer. The older model just drained your battery as it turned on immediately and stayed on. The transfer wizard is useful for transferring to the PC, but you can also just treat this as a removable drive so why switch? The LCD window is great for taking up close shots and looks to be inprovved over pervious versions as well. This is a point and shoot camera and is one of the best at 3.0 MP. It offers everything I need, plus I can make mini movies with ease (no sound). The only problem is the camera lens door! They did not fix this problems! You have to open it of course to shoot, but if you do not open it all the way the camera will not take pictures and this can be confusing for some as the viewfinder is blurry. You must make sure to click it all the way open. I have learned to live with that, but when I am taking shots it is too easy to shift the door slightly back inward and cause the camera switch back to view mode. This is the only flaw, it will frustrate you greatly when it happens, but I have adapted to taking pictures in a way to avoid this. I had hoped they had fixed the door, but did not. Either way I love my camera and still recommend the product. Search around for competitive prices.
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad camera in any respect.
Review: The D-550 is another of the Olympus line of clam shell cameras dating back to the old (non-digital) Stylus models of the mid-80s. In that sense, the design is tried and true and I like it for its compactness and its ability to protect the lens from those with a penchant for losing lens caps. For the vast majority of digital camera users, this camera will meet all of their needs well into the future. The D-550 trumps the recently released D-520 by offering resolution at 3 megapixels, which with some software manipulation (similar to TV line doublers) claims to raise the maximum resolution to an effective 6 megapixels. I've played with interpolation and am not a believer, and I have stated in numerous reviews of other digicams that resolution beyond 2 megapixels is generally wasteful. The question here is whether the D-550 is worth the 50% premium it carries over the D-520. This cost jump is a function only of the increased resolution. This higher resolution can be worse than unnecessary for *most* applications, it can make the camera less user-friendly. Aside from the fact that it raises the initial price of the camera, operationally it requires greater battery use, usually involves longer lag times between shots, takes much longer to download to a PC and especially prolongs both phases of e-mailing photos (your uploading the file and your recipient opening it). These latter issues are, in my opinion, the most important, as the real purpose of digital cameras is being able to integrate them into the world of personal computing. [note: For those folks whose needs are enlarging photos beyond 8" x 10", higher resolution is required] The other features of the D-520 worth noting are its very adequate 2.8X optical zoom *plus* a vaguely helpful digizoom (do not accept digital zooms in place of optical zooms; they are not equals), its ability to operate off readily available AA alkalines (though it will accept rechargeables and these make more sense in may ways), its easily expandable memory (it uses SmartMedia, not quite as good as CompactFlash cards, but close enough) and an adequate number of user-controllable settings, all of which can be handled automatically if you prefer. The only drawback of significance has been slow focus on the Olympus digital cams, resulting in more blurred pics than I think acceptable (and this even with my 700, self-stabilizing model!). Personally, I'd take the D-520 and use the money left over to buy a bigger memory card and some rechargeables.
Rating: 
Summary: A great digital camera.
Review: The D-550 Zoom is a great dig. All the features you should ever need unless you intend to be the ultimate professional. The picture quality is wonderful. The only draw back is the instruction booklet. If this is your first dig it will take you a while to discover all that it does and the literature is hard to follow sometimes. I still recommend it over any other camera in this price range.
Rating:
Summary: Good camera, make it thinner
Review: The key thing on these little digital cameras is the tradeoff between compact size, versus low price and good quality. This camera is a good compromise. Excellent photo quality, good battery life. The use of standard-size batteries gives flexibility; when you are travelling and cannot recharge your rechargables, you can just buy some AAs and stick 'em in. A big advantage versus the Nikon Coolpix 3500, which was my main comparator before deciding. The Nikon though is slimmer, with that intelligent swiveling design for the lens barrel. Olympus could not slim the 3500 down and maintain enough depth for a good zoom. Slimness is a big advantage when slipping the thing into your pocket! Like into a ski jacket for example. But the Nikon costs more...Another reason I finally chose Olympus. We've had it for four months and are using it a lot - just took mountainside shots flying over the Alps - crisp and clear as could be. Action shots skiing also turned out great. With 3 megapixel image size, you can easily crop out the unnecessary parts of a photo and still have enough quality for a good sharp picture containing only the part you wanted. This turns out to be a great advantage of a digital camera I didnt realize before buying. If you have Windows XP you dont need to use the Camedia software, its a snap just using Windows Explorer > My Pictures to store everything in there. But the Camedia software was also quite good and has additional nice features, I just preferred to keep life simple. Summary: great photos, handy enough, small enough, just wish it were a tad thinner.
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch Digital Camera for non-professionals
Review: The Olympus D-550 Digital Camera was a surprise replacement my older D-490 camera which I had the misfortune of dropping on the ground and breaking. As much as I loved the D-490, the D-550 proved more than up to the task of replacing and succeeding the older version in terms of my satisfaction.
The D-550 brings a number of a excellent features to the table:
Pros:
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-Sharp 3.0 Megapixel resolution
-Closeup optical and digital zoom capability.
-Large memory capacity (in terms of size of cards it can support)
-Lightning fast USB connectivity.
-Multiple light exposure settings.
-Quicktime full-motion video capability.
-Easy thumbnail view of pictures from back LCD screen.
-Compact design
Cons:
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-Short battery life (rechargeables are a must!)
-No sound with Quicktime movies
-Fragile case-cover that is essentially a $5 piece of equipment that can render the entire camera useless if it breaks (I know this from experience).
When it's all said and done, this camera holds up remarkably well against comparable models. The cons listed above are likely found with any brand of digital camera in this grade. This camera is not designed for the professional photographer, but if you're a person who simply loves to take lots of photos as a way to create a record of life, then this is the digital camera for you.
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