This year Santa dropped by my house, and left me the Kodak Dx3500 early on Christmas Eve. (I guess he wanted to make sure I didn't miss any great Christmas pictures!!)Anyhow, after 2 days of extensive testing and experimentation....I feel comfortable enough to write a review on my new toy!

First off, the pricing of this camera is EXCELLENT!! (Santa did his research!!) There aren't many 2.2 Megapixel digital cameras out there for under $250, but amazingly....the DX3500 can be found for about $220 (without the optional dock) at most stores!! Why is this impressive you may ask?? Because the higher the megapixel is, the higher resolution a picture can be taken at, making pictures seem more clear and crisp than lower megapixel or resolution cameras out there. As a general rule..the higher the megapixel, the better the images should be. Unfortunately, the higher the megapixel, the higher the camera's price is in most cases!!! Thank goodness Kodak is bucking this trend, and kept this camera well priced!

The second thing I noticed about this camera is it's bright and easily viewed 1.8 inch LCD screen. I've played around with quite a few digital cameras lately, and very few of them had the brightness and colorful LCD screen that this camera and most other Kodak cameras seem to offer. Making things even better, is the easily accessed menu button and display features. Even novice digital camera users should have an easy time figuring out, and using the menu features on this camera!

The DX3500 is either bundled with an optional loading dock, or is packaged separately. This optional loading dock is priced at about $80, and in my opinion...is not worth the extra purchase if you happen to get the DX3500 without the dock bundled with it. The DX3500 has a SUPER fast USB transfer feature that in my opinion, pretty much makes the dock an over priced battery charger. While the optional loading dock is SUPPOSED to offer faster picture transferring onto a computer, as well as rechargable Kodak batteries and a Kodak battery charger, I honestly don't think the dock offers anything extra that the USB transfer feature or a $20 generic battery charger could offer you!

And now for the good stuff!! Does the DX3500 take good pictures you ask?? YES,it does...in most situations anyway!! The DX3500 is an EXCELLENT camera for close range shots and for well lit places as well, but unfortunately, it doesn't do as well in low lighting and far away settings as I would like. While the DX3500 doesn't take bad pictures, it can easily take blurry or faded looking pictures when lighting conditions are poor, or if photo subjects are too far away. Don't get me wrong though...the DX3500 takes better shots in these conditions than most other decently priced cameras would...but just not as well as I would have anticipated due to it's EXCELLENT close range and well lit picture taking ability!! (Nothing's perfect I guess!!) And hey, where the low lighting and far away pictures fail, the internal 8 megabytes of memory more than make up for it!! Not many digital cameras come with so much memory, but Kodak generously gives you enough to take up to 20 "best" quality pictures, or 40 to 50 "good" quality pictures without having to buy an additional compactflash card.(This camera can take up to a 128MB compactflash memory card, and I recommend that anyone buying this camera should at least consider buying a 32MB or higher memory card to go with it! You know what they say....you can never have TOO MUCH memory!!)

All in all, the DX3500 comes with great software, has a good battery life, and is a great little camera for novices or beginners wanting to jump out of the ancient world of film cameras, and into the new world of digital cameras!! My only real problem with this camera is it's reliance on digital zoom and lack of the far superior optical zoom, though I suppose the optical zoom was left out to keep the price down. Despite that...I can honestly say that this camera packs a great punch for a great price!!

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 220