Never had I ever owned a camera so powerful as the Photosmart R725. (Then again, never had I owned a digital camera before.) I was extremely impressed with the clarity of the camera. Then when I learned more about taking pictures, I became disappointed over and over again.

The Beginning, After Getting the Camera
After getting the camera I was a little confused as to what the camera wanted me to do. I know it wanted me to do something, but WHAT WAS IT!!! Every time I held the button half way down, the brackets turned either green or red. I soon learned through the manual that green meant the camera was focused and that red meant that the camera was not focused. So I used this new technique of focusing all the time afterwards.

...

It didn't work all the time. Sometimes the brackets said, "This picture is going to come out PERFECT! Go ahead and take the picture!" But no, when I looked at it, it was not as clear as I expected it.
Also battery life was a small problem. If you take a LOT of video, the battery will discharge faster than you after a bad burrito. Although the battery is rechargeable (with battery charger included) you might want to buy an extra one, just in case. (I didn't want to mention this, but the battery life indicator isn't accurate AT ALL.)
Then came...

The Middle
Soon I learned how to ALWAYS get the picture to come out clear, but even skill couldn't help me getting some weird looking white circles on my picture.
Now don't go thinking that I'm claiming to have a real life 'Sixth Sense-plot', but it turns out that sometimes when taking pictures in an unlit area, the flash bounces of your subject and returns to the lens, but if the lens has dust on it, then the dust will come out clear as day on the picture. This annoyed me SO MUCH! However, it still didn't make me think it was a bad camera because of the built in menu capabilities that I am about to explain.

Menu Items
The Menu offers many things especially to those that have an artistic mindset. Among the many things that you can do to your pictures is crop them, solarize them, enhance ground color or sky color, create a kaleidoscope-like picture out of you picture, even a slimming setting where if you think you came out fat in that dress that your husband said was "ok", you can just click on that and you will instantly reduce 4 sizes. LITERALLY! (I think. As a guy, I'm not sure how big or small a size is, but that capability can reduce quite a bit actually.)
My personal favorite is the solarize menu (where the colors on the picture get mixed and matched and turn out to show REALLY weird pictures), and the black and white color changer, where you can make classic looking pictures.

The End
The end, at least of this review is, the Photosmart R725 is a cool camera. Especially for beginning camera people. There is an exceptional amount of things that you can do with it. Overall, after getting past a lot of the small details, this camera is worth getting.

Although for some people, it's the small details that matter.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 250.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts