Great little camera - easy to use, best with docking station
Written: Dec 06 '03
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Pros: Easy to use/ great picture quality/ nice video capability
Cons: Two buttons for email and print is too much
The Bottom Line: Will buy it for my mom (above 65 years) for christmas
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| olli_usa's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Photosmart 635 Digital Camera |
First of all - 2MP - is this enough? Seems to be enough for the standard 4x6 picture. If you plan to do a lot of posters or partial enlargements of your photo you might go for another one. For me - this camera is easy to use and with the docking station together provides even more than I hoped for.
Easy to use ... it has the right amount of features and buttons. I found picture quality to be more important than fancy sounds and granted ... the design of the camera is not as cute as Sony's but I want to take pictures and not show it off, right?!
The more important features are available through direct buttons: flash on/off, view picture taking on screen, view taken pictures.
I am not too sure if I need two Instant Share buttons for email and print though.
This camera has a feature hidden a little in the menu for white balance which makes a huge difference in the quality of pictures. Set it to the indoor light source - and the colors come out the right way - very nice.
The videos I took so far are of course not comparable to the ones I take with my camcorder - but they are soo much more accessible. Sometimes when I see something on my ReplayTV/Tivo which I want to share with a friend or colleague - I just take my hp 635 camera and point it at the TV, rewind and "tape" it with my camera. Not only that I can show it on my TV from the camera (through the docking station which is connected to the TV very easily) but I can take it with me, or send it to friends as an email attachment.
Of course the internal memory is not enough and you need to buy another memory card in addition. It is kind of neat though that it acts like a "reserve". Once the memory card is full - you have a couple more shots left to do if you just take your card out.
What I like (and this sounds silly but once you try this camera and compare with others you'll see what I mean) ... the camera has a little beep when you really took the picture. This really helps a lot!! You know exactly how to avoid to take the 1001 picture of your feet (when you thought you took a picture and want to see it - and really the digital cameras takes the picture that moment you point it down to your feet).
Every digital camera has a delay which is the time of when you want to take the picture and when it actually does. So the guesswork to know when it did is taken away now. Very nice.
I do not only recommend this camera but will buy it for my mother (above 65 years old) and my father in law. Both use conventional point and shoot cameras so far and for Christmas my wife and myself always bring them something they would enjoy and not buy by themselves. This present is a little egoistic actually because we will enjoy this way more of their lives. The unload software of hp to a webpage is far more easy to use than anything else I have seen in the market - which is exactly what we need for this use case with our parents of advanced ages.
They will love the docking station (hooked up to the TV) because they are so TV oriented anyway.
For $210 (Dec 2003) this bundle is really cool and we are debating if we can throw in one of these cute 4x6 printers which can be hooked up to the back of the docking (or even directly to the camera). That way our parents could even print when they see the picture on the TV and like it.
Anyway - I do like the camera because it is a no fuzz camera and provides a lot for the price.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Fool-Proof for Absolute Beginners
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Epinions.com ID:
olli_usa
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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