Ben Snyder
Forum Enthusiast
I had this camera for about a year. I bought it on clearance (it was a floor model), but after carefully examining it, it was like new, except for a few scratches caused by the employee taking off the theft protection device. I read a lot of reviews that the construction was poor. I beg to differ! I dropped this baby twice on concrete from about 4 feet and it survived both times without any change in picture quality (the lens cover came off, but I just pushed it back in)! The camera gives great pictures, but I found the 1.3 megapixels and the lack of any real manual features to be limiting. I have since bought a Canon Powershot S30 and sold this one to my parents for $100 (that including rechargeable batteries and a 32 meg SM card). If you just need an affordable point and shoot, this is a good camera. Battery life is very good with rechargeable NiMH batteries.
Problems:
Lack of manual features, annoying manual mode (asks you if you want to save a picture before actually saving it - I gave the camera to my dad to take some pictures of my band and he only got one shot b/c I inadvertantly left it on manual mode). I didn't find the red-eye reduction very useful, but then again, I haven't seen it implemented in a camera in which it actually works >90% of the time.
Problems:
Lack of manual features, annoying manual mode (asks you if you want to save a picture before actually saving it - I gave the camera to my dad to take some pictures of my band and he only got one shot b/c I inadvertantly left it on manual mode). I didn't find the red-eye reduction very useful, but then again, I haven't seen it implemented in a camera in which it actually works >90% of the time.