HP Photosmart M425 Digital Camera

Ahyoka

Daemon Poster
Messages
1,373
My Opinion:

It is a pretty good little camera for the price (around 120 bucks), I like it also because it has a video recorder in it, however without a memory card you can only shoot a 30 second clip before it fills the on board memory up...and you can't adjust the zoom level on videos your recording...another kinda con is the cameras video recorder shoots the videos in AVI format...so if you ever do buy a memory card for this camera (which i would recommend) a 10 minute video can be 30 or 40mb in size when you dump it to your pc. but you can change the format in a program like Windows Movie Maker or some other video converter to a smaller file.

One thing about the camera is without a memory card it don't hold very many pictures, at VGA (the smallest file size) it holds 80 pics but the quality ain't the best...at 1mp it holds 36 pics, at 3mp it holds about 16 pics, at regular 5mp it holds 10, at high quality 5mp (the highest picture quality) it only holds 4 pictures. but i bought a 2gb memory card for 30-40 bucks at Bestbuy so now it can shoot 3394 pics at 3megapixels or 105 minutes of constant video.

another drawback to the camera is it is a battery hog...it uses 2 AA battery's. so if you plan on going somewhere for a day and taking alot of pictures while your there, then it would be wise to bring along another 2-3 changes of battery's, there is a port to plug a DC Charger in it though (you have to purchase the re-chargeable battery seperate). it takes nice pictures though for what the average person uses it for...i use it for outdoor photography and it takes good pretty pictures! below are some pictures i took with the camera.


HPIM2618.jpg

HPIM3139.jpg


it has different flash settings for stuff like self timers, landscapes, portraits
etc...it is very easy to operate because it has few buttons so it's easy to acess menues and change settings. it's logically laid out (stuff like a dedicated delete button makes it easy to cull crappy pictures). i also like how you can remove red eye from pictures in the camera. but if the person is really far away and not really looking at you it might not detect red eye in the photo.

for the hardcore photographers this more than likely wouldn't fit your needs...but for the average person who wants a good camera this is pretty hard to beat. it's a good, reliable little camera, i am glad i own it.

Pros:
-good price for a 5mp camera (around $120)
-good quality pics
-very easy to operate
-camera can remove red eye from photos
-records video

Cons:
-battery hog
-can't adjust zoom level on videos
-without a memory card it don't hold many pictures

my final rating is

value: 4.5/5
picture quality: 4/5
ease of use: 4.5/5

overall. 4/5
 
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