HP Photosmart 320

Opinion: (Please note: I had hoped to make this more readable by inserting bold & italics, but whatever software dpreview uses wouldn't let me; so sorry if it's hard-to-follow. I re-edited this thing about 10 times until it looked decent. 8P )

                The story:                 I bought this camera for my mother as a Christmas present. At first glance in the store it seemed okay. Nothing like my Sony DSC-F707, but fine for my mother, who is terrible with technology. As a result, I was camera shopping both with ease-of-use and my college-student budget in mind.

      After purchasing the camera and bringing it home, I decided to take it out of the box so that I could 'prepare' it for Christmas; the idea being that when my mother unwrapped it, she could start taking pictures right away. It was then that I realized this camera runs on AA batteries. I have heard horror stories about Digital cameras which use AA batteries. The manual said I could put rechargable AAs and charge them in-camera, but it does not come with an AC adaptor.

      On Christmas my mother was very happy when she unwrapped it. She took a few pictures, which I then uploaded to the computer. WindowsXP (Pro) instantly recognized the new hardware when I plugged it in and it required no software tweaking. On the other hand, unlike with my 707, you can't "Cut" the images from the camera directory and "paste" them into the hard disk. You must "copy" them and then later "delete" them. I found this annoying, but not fatally so.

      The camera does not allow you to choose resolutions. Rather, it lets you choose "qualities," which is more or less the same thing, but it doesn't tell someone computer savvy like myself anything much. The manual told me that * means 640x480, although the _camera_ never tells you this.   **   means 1600x1200.   ***     --also-- means 1600x1200, however apparently with less compression. The camera defaults to  ** and this looked decent, however nearly all pictures with people included red-eye.

            What made this camera not-worth-owning was a combination of factors: First, the flash/lens proximity results in almost 100% red-eye. Second, the flash is very weak. If you're farther than 6-7 feet, forget about it. Third, the zoom is digital-only and it is not a very good digital zoom. Finally, the AA batteries wear down too quickly.

                Who should buy this camera: You should own this camera if you cannot afford a better one, but must have decent digital pictures which will mostly be taken in bright light without a zoom being necessary, and either have a supply of AA batteries or some nice AA Lithium batteries and a convenient charger.

                PROS                
      Construction: Although it's light plastic, there are no little doors to break off. Ports are covered by a stiff rubber material.
      Cost: At $140 or less, it's tough to beat the price.
      Ease of use: The menus are extremely straightforward and make even more sense if you spend 2 minutes reading the part of the manual covering them.

            We just now got back from returning the 320 and upgrading to a Canon PowerShot 320 (Elph). Hopefully this will be much more satisfactory.

                CONS                
      Batteries: AA batteries in a digicam are a terrible idea
      Flash: The flash is both too weak (probably in order to avoid over-stressing the 4 AAs.) (Heck, even a normal flash for a 35mm uses 6 AAs! How are they gonna get by running a camera on 4???) Furthermore, the flash is too close to the lens, resulting in lots of red-eye.
      Lens-cap: There is none, and the lens is in a position that is VERY easy to accidentally grab when picking up the camera. The result: Smudged lens.
      Modes: This camera takes videos, but it has no sound. Sound is good. Who wants to take a video with no sound? Also, this camera has no "Macro" mode. Now, I understand this is an entry-level camera, but those are useful features for which I would have paid another $20-$30, I think. I'd also chip in another $1 for a lens-cap.

      Overall, I'd have to give this camera 3/5 if I'm being generous. Naturally I'm biased in favor of my 5MP Sony F707 which I love dearly, but still... as someone said in a separate review, "HP should stick to building printers."

Opinion: Just bought this camera for my teenager daughter (getting tired of paying for film/processing). I've owned several digital cameras over the past 5 years.

This HP is not "professional" by any means, but it's a good basic snap-shot camera - fixed focus, no zoom, etc. But the color looks good, it's easy to use, and inexpensive.

I gotta say that it has two "must have" features:

AA batteries - we have a large supply of NiMH rechargables I use in cameras and radios. I like the 1800 NiMH batteries, and if you're caught in the field with no spares, AA are available at the nearest store. This camera works fine on standard alkaline batteries (unlike some more sophisticated cameras).

SD card - I use SD for other cameras, and have an SD card reader attached to the computer full-time. It was great to be able to take the card from the HP and read it directly. Fortunately HP used JPG formatting instead of some proprietary file format. Makes file transfers easy, fast, etc. Don't have to hook the camera to the computer (with more cable taking up another USB port). This works great, and my daughter is thrilled.

So, if you're not sure that digital is for you, and you want an inexpensive way to find-out, this is a good choice.

Mike

Opinion: I bought this camera as a step up from my previous digital camera - the HP C200 Photosmart. I stuck with HP simply because I have an HP printer with direct print capability if I use an HP camera.

While no digital camera in this price range is going to compare with a 35mm, I did expect this one to at least out-do the C200 I owned before. The image quality on the C200 was pretty darn good for a 1 MP camera. I figured the image quality for a 2 MP from the same manufacturer would be even better -- wrong.

First of all even with red-eye reduction ON (a nice feature on most cameras these days), EVERY person in EVERY picture looks like they're demonically possessed. Unless, of course, their eyes are closed. Very disappointing, although HP does slightly compensate for this with their really effective Red-Eye Correction feature included in the software.

Next image quality problem is the "oil-painted" look to all my photos. That doesn't really describe it as well as I'd like it to, but I can't think of another description. It's almost like the camera over-compensates with "smoothing" the images to make them less-pixelated. At any rate, it's annoying and it happens any time I take a picture indoors. Outdoor images turn out just fine, however.

Some great features are the direct-print and the super easy uploading. I also like that I can email pictures as I upload them to the computer. It's also very easy to use, and I was able to operate it right out of the box. Although, I'm familiar with digital cameras, I think even a beginner could get it to work without consulting the manual.

All-in-all it's an ok camera for the money, but I was disappointed in the image quality. I plan to nix this one and step up to a better brand.

Opinion: I bought this camera as a step up from my previous digital camera - the HP C200 Photosmart. I stuck with HP simply because I have an HP printer with direct print capability if I use an HP camera.

While no digital camera in this price range is going to compare with a 35mm, I did expect this one to at least out-do the C200 I owned before. The image quality on the C200 was pretty darn good for a 1 MP camera. I figured the image quality for a 2 MP from the same manufacturer would be even better -- wrong.

First of all even with red-eye reduction ON (a nice feature on most cameras these days), EVERY person in EVERY picture looks like they're demonically possessed. Unless, of course, their eyes are closed. Very disappointing, although HP does slightly compensate for this with their really effective Red-Eye Correction feature included in the software.

Next image quality problem is the "oil-painted" look to all my photos. That doesn't really describe it as well as I'd like it to, but I can't think of another description. It's almost like the camera over-compensates with "smoothing" the images to make them less-pixelated. At any rate, it's annoying and it happens any time I take a picture indoors. Outdoor images turn out just fine, however.

Some great features are the direct-print and the super easy uploading. I also like that I can email pictures as I upload them to the computer. It's also very easy to use, and I was able to operate it right out of the box. Although, I'm familiar with digital cameras, I think even a beginner could get it to work without consulting the manual.

All-in-all it's an ok camera for the money, but I was disappointed in the image quality. I plan to nix this one and step up to a better brand.