HP Photosmart M527 6MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

The HP camera is very easy to use and takes great pictures, its small enough to carry comfortable but does not feel fragile

I've had digital cameras before, but this one is has it all. If you want to take really good pictures of your life then buy this camera. The HP Photosmart M527 6MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom has more features than I'll commonly use , but I think all of them will come in handy in specific settings. Easy to use and great photo quality.

The HP Photosmart M527 is an all around well built camera, espicially considering the price it can be purchased at.

The body is all metal and it's honestly built like a small tank. It feels good and strong in your hands. The weight of the camera is also very evenly balanced, so you can hold it in one hand and get clear shots in almost any situation. The ergonomics and overall design also help with this. Every button on the camera can be accessed with just your one hand.

The screen is very nice, bright, and colorful, even on the lowest brightness setting. I really don't have a problem with it being "only" 2". I can't imagine a situation where the "small" screen would negatively impact the ability to accurately frame a shot.

The image quality, for the price, is also fantastic. The shots can be a little noisey. But honestly, how many cameras in this price range will not produce noisey pictures? Considering the price, the image quality is great. Sure, it doesn't look as good as a Canon that costs an extra hundred dollars. But that doesn't mean the image quality is bad. The noise disappears completely when you shrink the picture down to fit in an email. Afterall, you're not emailing friends pictures that are 3.3MB in size each, are you? ;) When printed out, using a photo printer or getting them done professionally, the prints are very colorful with good detail, definition, and color saturation. They will definitely be able to sit next to all of your other framed prints, or go in a photo album, and only you will ever know that it is a digital print because nobody else will be able to see the difference in quality.

The camera also offers multiple shooting modes that can help improve the image quality in certain situations. For example, it has a "Portrait" mode which can help the look of closeups dramatically. It also has the obvious "Night" mode which will take care of any dark or murky pictures in low light. There is a "Beach and Snow" mode which will help you with those high contrast shots in bright lighting. It has a Macro mode which has obvious uses. You can also manually adjust certain other parameters, such as ISO speed. However, you cannot adjust shutter speed or more advanced settings like that. But if you find your pictures aren't exactly what you want them to be, there are definitely modes that can help you get the quality you desire.

The camera also has a decent movie mode. It can record roughly 30 minutes of slightly better than VHS quality video, with sound, on a 512MB memory card. It's not very good in low light, but it can be good for those quick moments when you are out and wish you had a video camera. However, you cannot zoom in or out while recording. You can adjust the zoom before and after recording. But not during.

The camera also has very extensive photo editing features built-in, like the famous "slimming" effect, and you can do other things like add borders. It also has a very thorough Help system.

There are only a couple of minor gripes I have about this camera. The first is battery life. Real world battery life is about 100 shots on two alkaline batteries. So get some rechargables or lithium batteries. The second gripe is that the memory card slot is right in there with the batteries. So that can be a little bit of a pain if you use a memory card reader instead of hooking the camera up to your computer to transfer pictures.

Overall its a great camera for the price, as long as you keep you are realistic with what to expect. You're getting a complete package for not very much money. Not many other cameras under the $200 price range offer such a complete package. If you're looking for a great camera on the cheap that is built well and has a ton of features, this is definitely one to look at. However, if you want absolutely pristine image quality, you're better off looking at the $250+ Canon PowerShot A6x0 series. For me, this camera is the one that is built like a tank and will get taken with me everywhere I go. But I will keep a higher quality Canon around for those times when image quality is more important than the quick, yet good, shot.

I bought this camera for Christmas and it is absolutely horrible! It takes really bad quality pictures and it has a very noisy lens. It's a great looking camera but the screen is only 2 inches which is very small. This camera is not a good buy for it's class.

If you are looking for a cheap camera with a higher res. then here it is. Like I said, you get what you pay for.