• Excellent Image Quality (bright and vivid colours)
• Very little distortion effects (barrel or chromatic)
• Time-lapse feature
• Amazing low light capability
• At last - uncompressed mode!
• Powerful yet measured internal flash
• External flash synch connector
• Supplied batteries & charger
• USB connectivity (though lack of serial in-the-box is not good)
• Digita scripting - increased flexibility

• Noise visible on images, especially in shadows
• Slow updating and poor display LCD (still!)
• Focusing sometimes requires a "double hit"
• Noisy mechanics (lens / zoom)
• Slow bootup
• Lack of real manual controls (outside menu system)
• Lack of on-screen information
• Useless thumbnail mode (3 images??)
• Long shutter release lag
• Lack of serial port support in-the-box
• Slow image storage / processing
• Camera still feels like last years model
• Bulky

Overall conclusion

Here's my rating of the Kodak DC290:

If you're an avid scripter (read Digita) or a big Kodak fan then you'll love this natural progression from the DC265.. though I suspect many D260/DC265 owners were hoping for much more than the DC290, something to compete with the best 2+ megapixel digicams on the market, not something that feels like a 12 month old camera with a 2 megapixel CCD shoehorned into it. That said I can't fault the image quality (other than most images do seem to come out "dark") and the bright vivid colours are bound to please some.

Below Average

So which one should I buy? A question I get asked several times a day, and I wouldn't like to say In a new addition to my reviews (after the amount of feedback I normally get) I've added a link to a specific forum in which you can discuss the review or ask me specific questions which I've not answered in these pages.

Buy the Kodak DC290 online today and help support this site

Enter the 'Kodak Talk' Discussion Forum