Full Review

I purchased this camera after my 5.0 megapixel minolta died after 2 short years. I was pleased with the price of this camera for the amount of megapixels it had. I mostly take just family shots, that sort of thing, not a big photography buff. We email pictures a lot because my relatives live out of town and oversees. They are pleased with the way the pictures look and they do print up nicely. I received a free hp printer with this camera, but sold it seeing I had one already of better quality. The man at the Ritz camera store was very nice and showed me some basic functions on it. I have played extensively with it and have even used the rapid succession picture taking function. I was taking my sons pictures while he was in karate class and just kept missing him in mid kick. I used the rapid speed function and was able to download all the shots and take the pictures that I felt were where his leg should be and kept only those. that was a great option. I have also used it to take some video clips and send oversees to grandparents, the kids singing happy birthday, that sort of thing. The microphone on this camera could either be more powerful or better placed because you have to practically yell for it to be loud enough for the recipient to hear it even with the volume full blast on the speakers. So if this is a function that is important to you, you better look elsewhere. There are alot of buttons of the back of the camera that can be confusing, I haven't master all of those yet and what they mean, but truth be told, I have only briefly skimmed over the users manual. If you are looking for a camera that has basic functions and doesn't require you to sit down and look at a book and then practice what you learned than you are probably better off with a camera for less buttons. I must say that the software that comes with this one was not as good as a program that I was using before for editing and sharing pictures, so I just don't use it. I much prefer Picasa software to what comes with it.