HP Photosmart 425 GoGo Photo Studio (M417 5MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom & Photosmart 420 4x6 Photo Printer)

I recently acquired this HP417 camera as a gift. As a newbee to digital photography, I initially thought it would take some time to come up to speed in learning the format, deal with the inevitable hardware hookups and software downloads.

To my complete surpise, I have found an excellent camera with easy to use functionality which also comes prepared with available software from the manufacturer to easily and selectively download my photos.

For those reviewers and new users who continue to grapple with battery issues, I have 2 words: Lithium Dioxide. Forget about the rechargeable NiCads and the premium Alkalines. Lithium batteries hold their full voltage for the duration of their long lives and do not allow the gradual voltage dropping you may have experienced as a battery problem with this camera, whereby it appears to "peter out" or react slowly.

Additionally, with a simple addition of a $7 1GB SD Memory Card, your camera's memory will enjoy its full potential and ability to store an incredible amount of absolutely quality photos at the highest setting of 5.2 MP. You can delete as you go along.

Anyway, I am bored with reviewers always fixing the blame and not addressing the issues, when in most cases it is operator-induced ignorance at work.

The HP417 has an LCD menu which is intuitive

This camera i have had for a while, and i personally think it stinks. It is somewhat heavy for this range. The mega pixels are only 5, zoom is only 3x, and it takes AA batteries. It's battery life is not very good, it is heavy, and overall i would not suggest it.

This is the most over priced and poorest quality cameras on the market. I have returned mine twice for repairs and now the auto focus is going out. The camera's MACRO function is a joke and if your looking for a camera that can take pictures in low light then this ain't it because it won't. DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA!

I've had this camera for well over a year, and I love it. It does take a while to recharge its flash and that has frustrated me at times. This can be helped, but not totally avoided, by always having freshly recharged batteries.

It does eat batteries quickly, but I find that as long as I recharge them enough, it's fine. It only takes two AA batteries and most rechargeable batteries come in sets of at least four, so I always have an extra two with me and switch them out if need be. Of course, if you're the kind of person who always forgets to/never charges their batteries, this is a bad choice for you.

It takes wonderful pictures. I've used it in pretty much any setting you can think of and it's been great. If you leave it someplace cold it'll take a bit to turn back on, but I imagine any other camera would have a similar problem.

Some other reviewers have said this isn't a hardy piece of machinery. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've dropped the thing a number of times and it's still good as new. A little scratched, of course, but it works just as well as it did when it was new.

I pretty much recommend this to anyone, unless you have a problem with being patient about things. Yes, the flash can take a bit to recharge, so just anticipate that. Make sure your batteries are charged. That's all. =)

I have had this camera since December of 2005.But i got i with the printer too.The printer is very good.But more can be said for the camera.For a few reasons The battery life is very poor.Like it can probley last you 30 mins at the most.And some times if you take a lot of pictures you can use them from the camera.And it will say photo can not be found.And sometimes whene you turn the camera on the screen will be off.And the screen is kind of bleek and dark and blurry too.And the video quality is horrible.And when you are taking a video with the camer the videos are very blurry and poor.And when you take a video you can look at the video on the camera but you CAN NOT HEAR THE SOUND.You have to have a computer to here the sound.And my grandpa has a canon and you can watch the video and hear the sound on the camera too!!!!!And in my opinon HP makes better computers then cameras. Thanks.