Great deal for the price

Author's Rating:

Pros: great price, great size, good picture quality, comes with what you need to start

Cons: eats batteries, slow shutter response, lcd not easy to see in some lighting situations

The Bottom Line: 
Overall, I am pleased with my great deal. If you shop around and find a good price on this one, it is a great deal for the 3+ megapixel range.

Author's Review
I picked this up just before Christmas at sams club for $389.00. My original intent was to get a 2.+ mega pixel camera, but being so close to xmas, most of reasonable price 2+ MPX cameras were sold out. Lucky for me, because this camera has higher MPX for around the same price range that I was looking in. I have shot tons of pictures with it already and am overall very pleased that I choose this camera (or it choose me).

I think it is a great size (fits in your pocket), comes with usb cable (transfer images to your pc), and comes with audio/video cable (to display on your tv - or in my case at a friends after a gathering).

It comes with 16MB SD memory(which is not the most common type of memory) but it also accepts multimedia cards (MMC). I have purchased a few MMC cards and they work as specified with the camera. I paid $21 and some change for a 32MB MMC card.

The picture quality is great for a digital camera in this price range, (I am an old time SLR user). You can view the images you have shot a pic at a time, or a page at a time (9 images). The flash is off to the side, so I have had only a few pics with red eye. It has audio capabilities, but I have not used that yet.

You can get about 30 images at the 3.3 MPX mode with high compression, about 15 with low compression, and about 70 at fine mode (about 1/2 the resolution) on a 16MB card.

It eats the batteries quickly, which I understand is not uncommon with digitals with LCD and flash usage, but this seems excessive. It takes 4 AA batteries (included) which I went thru quickly. Fortunately, it also takes rechargeable Ni-Cd and NiMH batteries. (I picked up 8 NiMH rechargeables with the charger for $20).

The only thing that I really am not pleased with, that I can't do a whole lot about, besides adjust to it, is the slow shutter response. I have gotten used to the fact that it doesn't take the picture as soon as I click the shutter, and in most cases I can still get the picture before the object changes. But there are a few times that I have missed a shot because of it.

The lcd gives crisp and clear images in most scenarios, but in some lighting (typically very bright) it is tough to see.

Hope this helped.