HP PhotoSmart Digital Camera 6.2MP 24x zoom

I bought this camera for my son and expected the 24X zoom it states. The box , though, was different, and it only has 3x zoom, which already has been a problem. Since it was a Christmas gift, I couldn't very wel return it. I think I'll stick to the stores next time.

We bought this for our daughter but quickly loathed giving it as a present because we quickly came to love it more then our Kodak we bought for 3 times the price. Oddly, our Kodak broke and have been sharing our daughters for the last month. The menus are animated and nice looking, the screen is large and comfortable to view, the internal optical zoom is great! I hate digital zoom as it degrades picture quality, and the internal gives it a nice boost. My one complaint is night pictures that are taken at a distance, it just seems to blur them or take very dark unusable pics. Where it can use the flash it does great at night. The battery life has been good, around 250-300 pics before a recharge. One more thing, the video picture quality is good for a digital camera. Basically, for a 110 dollar camera it is outstanding.

I have had Canon digitals in the past and thought I would give the HP a try. I like the size of the camera. Much smaller and weighs less than my old Canon. However, it is taking some time to get use to holding this camera differently. I have taken several pics and inadvertenly my forefinger would be partially in the way of the lens. The image quality is nice though and I like the larger LCD screen. So far, I think it's a pretty good value for the money. Has a lot of bells and whistles, too. Once I become more familiar with it, I'll probably like it just as well.