HP Photosmart R607 4.1MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

I bought this camera more than three years ago and have been using it ever since. I'm not the kind of person that takes pictures all the time, but enjoy taking pictures during trips and family/friends reunions. What decided me to buy the R607 were its low price (very cheap in comparison with similar cameras at the time) and my previous experience with HP products (I own a HP desktop, a HP laptop, a HP PDA...).

Regarding to this camera, it takes excellent pictures. I love the panorama function for taking landscape photos. 4MP is more than enough for a non-professional photographer. It has a lot of functions that I didn't use too often, but many could find useful. It can fit a cheap, very compatible SD memory card to improve its capacity.

Nevertheless, it has some downsides. First of all, the LCD display is quite small. You can get used to it, but since newer cameras come with larger displays, you can be tempted to go that way instead. The software has given me some headaches lately, but I suspect I could fix the bugs reinstalling it from the beginning. And the battery endurance has started to show some shortfall, but I think its normal after 3+ years of continued use.

Overall I'm very satisfied with the camera's performance. Now its time for me to buy a new one, and I'll stick to HP for that.

I've had this camera for almost two years, despite what others have said I've found it a somewhat tough camera physically.

Ok now to the long list of problems;

It has horrible motion capture, pictures often come out with a mild funhouse mirror warp effect, is utterly worthless in less than direct-sunlight and finally its far far to reliant on its flash. Also having to reset everything everytime you turn it on is a major annoyance. I've taken many pictures with it on many trips reaffirming its faults and still, If not for being a receipt-less present I would have returned it long ago.

I had a Pentax Optio 4 MP camera that I LOVED. Unfortunately I was careless and dropped it in water. In searching for a replacement, I saw that this camera was considered to be just as good and it was considerably cheaper. I figured since I was going to be careless with my camerea maybe I should buy the cheaper one, especially if it was supposed to be as good. What a MISTAKE. First off, this camera is a little bit bigger both in depth and width than the Optio. It just doesn't have the same sleekness. Secondly, the picture quality is definitely not as good. Every other picture I take is out of focus. I just want a simple point and shoot camera, one that can focus without having to mess with things...this isn't doing the trick. Now its been doing this weird thing where every picture I take has lines running through it (looks almost like the picture is ribbed). Its VERY annoying. I have such buyers remorse. I really wish I hadn't have tried to save money and had just bought the Optio. There's nothing positive I can say about this camera.

We got this camera as a gift. We have gone round and round with HP tech support and still have not managed to install the camera software into our computer. (We own other brands of digital cameras, all installed without a hitch.)

First of all, the HP software is 170 Mega-bytes large. Talk about bloat-ware! Why does it take such a huge program to manage a camera?

Secondly, HP knows about the software problem. A "fix" is posted on HP.com. After downloading all 170MB of it, it still failed to install. We contacted HP tech support through chat sessions, their suggestions all failed. HP send us an upgraded CD, it still halts on an error during install.

Lest you think we have a weird, off-brand computer, this is an HP Pavilion ZE4125 laptop.

It has been a thoroughly frustrating and disappointing experience.

This was my first camera I've owned and I wanted one to take pictures of my friends at school as well as scenery. Due to the camera's compact size I can carry with me everywhere I go. It has many options but I usually keep it on auto and I get great results. The main standout point for me was the HP Adaptive Light Tech. feature. It is made to bring faces out of shadows and details out of backgrounds which makes the picture look 100 times better. I put one of my images of Lake Dixon in the customer images section if you want to see just how good these pictures turn out. If your thinking of buying a camera at a reasonable price, one you can take anywhere, and still take great pictures, this is the camera for you! I love it!