Customer Reviews

Hewlett Packard C200 1MP Digital Camera

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

A nice camera. since the other reviews list all positives, letme list the downsides of picking this otherwise-cool cameraup.

1. Does not include an AC adapter. The HP adapter costs a fortune ($55). Buy a cheaper Sony 6v 700mA adapter as another reviewer notes...it'll do the same thing for about $20.

2. Get NiMH batteries and a charger (Target carries these) otherwise you'll soon begin to hate this machine, especially if you download pics to your PC a lot.

3. This one includes no carrying case. Consider the PDC 700 instead.

4. This camera is a good quality HP one, but has a cheap plastic look to it. Alternatives in the same $ range include the Kodak DC215 for about $260

I've had my c200 for a few days now and haven't really found anything wrong or have any regrets about buying it. If you plan on taking a lot of photos, you'll need the extra storage. I found the set-up very easy. The included software is really neat; there is a lot you can do with it. Transfer of the photos to my computer posed no problems whatsoever. Everything is included except an AC power adapter, which I definately recommend when you download pictures to your computer. There isn't a problem per se'. You just may want to preserve batteries, but really no big deal since the camera uses 4 AA batteries. The problem I encountered however is that no one seems to sell the AC adapter by itself. So I went on-line to HP's website and purchased it there; no problem. The thing is a bit expensive @ $50 but I think it's worth it. Perhaps a more generic AC adapter would work but I wasn't going to take the change and cook the camera. The next step up in a digital camera in my area would cost another $200. I'm happy with this one.

Nice picture quality and easy to use. This unit doesn't include the external power supply, so I would buy one or a card reader for downloading the photos to your PC - or if you are buying a photo printer, too, the HP models (1000, 1100) have a built in card reader. Downloading drains the batteries quickly. I like the color LCD for reviewing your pictures and the megapixel resolution produces nice, photo quality shots with good detail.

I needed a digital camera, my first one.. because I've taken over 800 photos in the past two years alone. Add the film and developing costs! I shopped Amazon and really did my homework. I was considering the Olympus D-340R also.. You need to buy the C200 for your first digital camera.

I've been experimenting with it the past few days. Here's the scoop on everything everyone else has been saying: First, don't use the LCD unless you NEED to. It's a luxury you can have when the time is appropriate. Experiment when you might need it. I only need it for closeup work. Save the battery power! The LCD drains all the power fast particularly if you are using it to take pictures. Just use it when you need 'menu' function. Second, downloading pictures to your PC is not the hell everyone says it is. Yes, takes some time..but not forever. When you download, set it all up, and go have lunch or dinner. When you return, its all finished. This saves time and worry. Third, buy rechargeable batteries and charger, it's all you need. The Kodak charger kit I bought on Amazon recharges in 3 hrs. That's overnight on a trip. Easy. Then, have one or two sets of regular "AA" batteries handy just in case. Fourth, buy an extra flash card, YOU CAN LITERALLY TAKE SOME 300+ pics on your next vacation! You get 70 low res pics on 8MB card. Good enough for family album shots of Grandma going flying! Last, the camera has all you need for most photo taking. It has 2x digital zoom, tripod mount, and the self timer for those family shots. Buy a color printer and you'll have a blast! Oh, the software is excellent, read the manual and learn to use it fully. Digital age is here and getting better, see ya later polaroid, and forget $5 for a roll of film anymore! Now, does anyone make a "portable digital photo album viewer"?

Image quality *** Performance **** Ease of use ***** Cost/Benefit *****

This camera has really easy operation and produce good pictures, battery life seems to be prety good too. Pictures are not as good as from Powershot A5 Zoom (which I own), but for web or TV use are good enough quality. Colors are for sure nice and sharpnes too. Some pictures I've took were actualy looking good even after printing on photopaper, but most of pictures showed a bit of color bleeding after printing. Seems like all three image modes has the same resolution of 75ppi(A5 Zoom produces 180ppi), which could be reason for decrease in print quality. Camera takes good pictures in the dark, flash seems to be strong enough for indoor shots without lights. Nice feature is option to set PAL or NTSC TV output. For the price and included 8MB CF card and software it's great deal.Display as viewfinder is worthles, it's jerky and slow. Only time to use display, is make sure, that settings in harder conditions produce good enough pictures. One thing you should watch out for, is messing with CF card into your computer if you use CF adapter or reader. Camera seems to be sensitive on content of CF card. It happend to me that camera wouldn't even formate CF card after I copied some files on the CF card using card adapter. Finaly I somehow deleted whole content of the CF card and formating worked again. If you use adapter, I suggest not to delete or copy any files (except for original dumps from prewious picture taking)using card adapter and computer, instead use deletion in camera menu after you copy all your pictures. If camera wouldn't read the CF card, delete all files from card (I suggest use del *.* in command line, be careful that you really deleting CF card and not your HDD ;-)) Than stick the card into camera again and formate it using cameras menu, then it should work again. I think that in this price level there is nothing better for now than this camera (only comparable product Olympus D340-R is hard to find in stock for this price and uses Smart Media, has lack of stitching software too). If you digital photo beginner or want camera for web with ocasional printing, go for this one.

Strengths: price, easy to use, optional PAL output, good flash, baterry life, nice look

Weaknesses: slight delay after pressing shooter button all the way down at once, sensitive on content of CF card, prints in general nothing special, jerky and slow display.

As an entry level digital camera, this is a great value. For $299 I wasn't expecting miracles, but I've been very impressed so far with this camera. Photo quality indoors, even at the lowest resolution, is amazingly good for Web work. Outdoors photos can sometimes get a little washed out, typically in very high contrast situations.

Other reviewers have mentioned their frustration with very short battery life. I too experienced this for the first few days. Expecting the 500 photos per set of 4 AA batteries the manual told of, I was very disappointed when I got maybe 30-35 shots before having to put in fresh batteries! I later learned that two things contributed to the short battery life. (1) Constant use of the flash. This situation can be fixed by turning off the auto flash when not needed, especially in most outdoor situations. (2) Constant use of the LCD screen. I thought it was cool at first, that you didn't even have to use the viewfinder--just frame your shots on the LCD! Come to find out, doing this sucks the life out of the batteries super fast. So use the traditional viewfinder to take pictures; if you're not sure how the picture came out and want to review it, use the LCD screen.

Lately, following the two rules above, I've been getting 200-300 pictures per set of batteries--including about 30-50 with the flash on. This is perfectly acceptable.

HP's $50 AC adapter should be priced at about $9.99. Instead, buy yourself a good quality set of rechargeable batteries and a charger (you can find them for about $30). This is a much more flexible solution that an AC adapter, especially if you get the 12 volt adapter for the charger so you can charge your batteries while on the road!

I love this camera! It is so easy to use. I was using mine within 20 minutes. Other cameras have more bells and whistles but if you are a beginner and dont want to spend the same type of $$ you can on a camcorder this is what I would recommend. The battery life is great as long as you don't use the LCD display to take pictures. One thing..using the serial port for downloading photos from the camera to your PC is too sloooooow. I recomend buying a flash reader for the flash card at any local electronics store. The reader is USB and it takes about 5 seconds to swap the card from your camera to the reader. It cost around $30.00. It's made by the same manufacturer who makes the card. Once the card is in it acts as a drive and it takes a second or two to bring up the pic compared to 10 to 15 minutes to do it before. The best thing about this is that you waste no battery life! The reader doesn't require batteries or an ac adapter! A much better deal than buying an AC adapter for the camera to download photos.

I bought my C200 about a month ago, and have taken about 100 pictures so far. Overall, they are outstanding, especially for a camera at this price. I find the flash is not quite as strong as I would like, though. The software works wells and is easy to use also. After 100 shots, I still am using the original alkaline batteries that came with the camera, and the battery indicator shows that the batteries are still nearly fully-charged. The time to download photos directly from the camera to the PC takes FOREVER, so I bought a Sandisk Imagemate USB Compactflash External Drive, and it is great. It downloads 16mb of images in just a few seconds. I have found when using the 2X zoom, the picture quality is poor, but in all other respects, I can heartily recommend this camera.

I personally hate developing film, so I went hunting for a digital camera. This one was the best value that I found. It's cheap, and the picture quality is good enough for me (email/web). The autofocus is kinda weird (half-depress to focus, press the rest of the way to shoot), the resolution is always 72 dpi, there really are only 2 sizes (1152x870 & 576x436), and to review pictures you have to turn off the camera.

On the good side, indoor pictures are, IMO, perfectly fine. The flash works well, and illuminates well. Outdoor pix are kinda washed out, and the autofocus doesn't seem to work real well outside.

Besides that, it's definitely worth it.

I just purchased the C200 camera by Hewlett Packard. It is my first digital camera. I took some pictres around campus today. They all came out superb. Downloading the pics from the camera is a little time consuming. It took me about 7 minutes to transfer 10 pics. I am still getting used to the different features and modes. So far so good. Setup was easy, use even easier, quality superb, price even better. What is really neat is that you can control the quality of the pics you want to take. The higher quality the less you can store. However, you canm hold 17 great quality pics with the standard memory card. I highly recommend the camera to anyone.