Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart M305

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This camera is small enough to carry in a purse while still being able to take quality photos! I love the size of it and the larger 1.8" LCD screen- most cameras this small only have 1.5" LCDs! It has an awesome 3x optical zoom and a digital zoom you can use if you are already using the maximum optical zoom. One of my favorite features of this camera is being able to take photos in sepia and black and white!

My only complaints are they say this camera has a movie mode with sound, but it has a microphone and no speakers, so you can only listen to the audio of your movie if you connect it to the computer using the included software- it comes with HP Instant Share software that has good editing tools and effects. While in movie mode you cannot use the zoom either. I also wish this camera came with a camera case to store it in so the LCD would not get scratched.

Overall this is a 4 star camera, I don't give it 5 stars because of the movie sound/zoom issue. It's a good buy for the price!!!

This is my second HP camera. The first one I purchased was a hp Photosmart 620. The 620 was great. I am extremely dissapointed with the M305. If you use the flash, be prepared to change the batteries out after just a few pictures. If you use rechargeables (even the 2500 amh), you will need to have the charger nearby and be prepared to take the two AAs out every minute or so. Even when using alkalines, the camera drains the power to quickly. I have also lost pictures in the camera due to losing power and having problems with the camera writing to memory.

Stick to a camera that uses 4 AAs instead of two. Pass on the M305, I wish I had.

The camera also crashes when you try to take subsequent photos. Forget it.

I am by no means a professional photographer, but I have a lot of experince with digital video processing and imagery. I wanted a digital camera that possessed macro photography potential and an optical zoom - digital zoom is useless on everything I have seen.

This camera was bought for $125, and for the price, performs fairly well. I have uploaded several photos to the image gallery so that you can judge the quality for yourself.

I am somewhat dissapointed in the overall quality of the photos from this camera. The JPEG compression is extreme, and although the camera lives at it's highest setting, 3MPBest, the compression is too aggressive. When editing in an image program, pixelization is quite apparent, and a 3.2MP high resolution picture gets compressed into a 1.2MP file. As a result, a busy scene contains numerous JPEG artifacts.

The Macro results are somewhat better. You may get as close as 4 inches to a subject - so it's not truly a MACRO lens, but it beats a minimum focal length of 22 inches.

Overall, this is a good camera for a beginner and the price is quite competitive for a camera with this feature set.

For anyone other than Grandma and the absolute beginner, the included .NET framework software (HP Image Zone 4) is total crap, and would best be avoided. It installs 5 or 6 processes at boot-time, and makes starting the computer take longer than necessary. If you use Windows XP / Server 2003, I would simply use the built in PTP protocol image downloader. In Windows 2000, set up the camera as a removable disk drive and copy the files from there.

HP should take note of this objection, and include the option for only installing the image downloader as opposed to installing a group of cheesy programs like Greeting Card Makers, Half-Assed image editors, and Web-Based image sharing apps. Every product in the HP line, including the $600 cameras, comes with this same software, and I believe they are hurting sales as many companies will shy away from sending, for instance, an insurance investigator or agent into the field with a camera that is supported with software that requires the installation of this sort of nonsense.

when this little camera works, it works well. The pictures are acceptable quality, and it's a handy size to tote around anywhere.

Unfortunately, HP totally missed the quality-control boat on this one. My first one had a defective shutter. The replacement eats batteries, I don't get even an hour's use on lithium batteries.

The bundled software isn't much to write home about either- it's not well-organized, and takes too many steps to do simple tasks like sort and delete batches of photos, and select photos for editing.

I bought this camera as a gift for my father. His first digital camera. Just to make the story short:

1. The batteries don't last more than 3 to 5 low quality pictures.

2. The customer service technician will tell you to download drivers from their website and use specific batteries (not alkalines)

3. The camera won't work any different after you spent hours and additional money following the technician instructions.

4. You can't return the camera after 30days, so you are stuck with a piece of garbage. (All HP M series are the same)

5. The proposed solution is to upgrade to a better model (HP R707). However the price difference is 'ridiculous'.

At the end I got a refurbished HP R707, which so far seems to be working fine.

You have been warned. Don't buy any HP M Series digital camera.

Bought this camera for a beginner camera for my fiance. She used it for about a year until we replaced it with a Sony DSC-W7(No comparison at all). While the camera was fairly easy to use and has a good design, the picture was generally poor with a grey tint to most photos. The flash was inadequite as well. Previous to this, she used an HP 635 2MP camera that didnt have the grey tint to it, could not take a clear picture to save its life. I have pretty much since given up on HP cameras mainly due to poor picture quality. Not too mention the ridiculous battery life.

Off the top the most I can say for this camera is that I'm glad it was a gift. I had the camera for two weeks before it would shut down with a "battery low" message even though the battery indicator showed full. I had HP replace the camera only to have the same problem with the new camera right off the bat. As for the picture quality, I have no issue there. The pictures are decently clear. The menus are easy to use as long as the camera will stay on. So overall, if this speaks for the quality of HP cameras, then I'll find something else.

I bought this camera about 2 years ago and it's gotten me some really nice looking pictures! Of course when I first purchased this camera it cost about $120 and I didn't know much about digital photography. I've never had any problems with pictures coming out bad. Some are better than others, but all of the images are at least decent. The camera is outdated now, but it still packs a punch. The buttons and zoom feature are easy to use and work well together. The battery life is pretty long using the Lithium AA battereies, but I'd still recommend the dock charger for the rechargeable batteries.

The video feature is something that I was slightly dissapointed in, causing the loss of a star (the only star, making my vote 4 stars). The videos always come out grainy, but it's alright for just basics I suppose. You can't zoom while capturing video either which bothered me a bit.

Overall, the camera is great for such a low price. The pictures are nice for only being a 3MP camera and the video is decent enough to capture some good moments.

I wish I had read the reviews on this before purchasing. While I did get a great price (around $50 new - it was a day after Thanksgiving sale) - it's not worth much more than the $50.

Like the other reviewers mentioned, the picture quality isn't great - and I usually have to really tweak the white balance & EV compenstation in order to get a decent picture. But usually by the time I get those figured out, the brand new batteries I put in will only have enough juice to take about 10 more photos.

This is definitely the last camera I'll purchase from HP.

I was given this camera as a gift for Christmas 2004. 2 weeks later, I had to send it into HP and have it replaced because it wouldn't turn on.

I'm on camera number two. I have taken over 3,000 photos since I got the camera, and that was all within the first 2 months. It was great until then, and then it stopped working. I never had a problem with the batteries until April of 2005. Ever since then, the camera will turn on, take 3 pictures, and then I have to charge the batteries.

Sometimes my camera decides to turn itself off suddenly with no warning. Othertimes, the LCD will turn bright pink, and it will shut down. No explaination. No warning.

The folks at HP have been of zero help. I got this camera free and it's not worth it.