Awful sound quality!

Whilst this camera takes decent but not outstanding pics, beware of the sound quality if you're thinking of buying it to take video clips at gigs.

Believe me, the poor quality of the sound will make your clips unuseable.

If you can get the thing to focus in the low light setting of a gig, you'll get a decent picture, but that's it.

If you can't get it to focus, you're left with a blur!(and yes, I have tried it with continuous auto focus on and off, and I've updated the firmware.

So,it's ok if you just want a point and shoot for every day snapping, but otherwise forget it!

Vivicam 6200w

Super camera for the money, tough, easy to use and the photo quality is great.
The buttons are a little bit counter intuative and the screens resolution is low but it is only a £60 camera.
don't be put off by the low f number either, outdoors on a clouday day I was getting some good surfing action shots with no blurring. Indoors is its weak point, a gloomy post surf pub resulted in terrible pictures.

So all in all a craking camera for outdoor wet fun!

Great point and shoot compact!

This is a great compact camera. It just sits on your palm snugly. The camera looks and feels solid but not too heavy in the pocket. It is also fast and responsive when taking pictures. The quality of the picture is beyond expectation from a point and shoot compact. If you are the regular SLR user but get fed up with the bulky camera then this compact camera would be the great alternative. The viewing LCD is big without the touch screen which is great as the touch screen would eventually get 'tired' and unresponsive with use anyway.
All the ISO associated noise etc are all common problems with any compacts anyway but in day to day 5x7 prints and web use, it gives really great pictures.
There is even a histogram too!
After using it a for a while, my wife loves it so much. She wants to add that it sits in the handbag really well without taking too much space among her other things (goodness knows what else she put in her handbags). The slideshow which can be shown on TV is pretty impressive.

nifty litle camera

Wow! what a great little camera and so cheap for what it does! This has to be the best value for money for a compact digital. I have reduced the pixel count to 5mp and in good light this produces pictures that are bright, nicely saturated and full of detail. It is a bit plasticy, hence 4 stars, and does not do all of the things that more expensive compacts are capable of doing. However, when you think about what you want a compact for, it doesn't make much sense to buy something that costs as much as a DSLR. Just point and shoot - this does the job surprisingly well and looks stylish too. It is light, small enough for a shirt pocket and pretty responsive in terms of finding focus. Low light capability? not great, but no worse than most digital compacts on the market. I use cameras a lot and am quite satisfied with this one as a very good budget camera that delivers good quality pictures.

Excellent small camra

I brought this for my hoildays and it is so easy use. even thou the buttons are small. it takes 2 hours to charge the battery. and it last over 2 hours of use. which is much better than using a camra with AA's as it takes full day to charge. The screen is big enough. The menu's are nice and clear. Its small light. If u dont want carry around ur SLR camra pefefect for hoilday pictures. The price is great too. Had no problems with it.

Compact camera with useful zoom and wide angle

A good-sized compact camera that is small enough to put in a shirt pocket but has large enough controls to manipulate easily. The camera feels solid and the Zeiss lens seems very sharp, with the 2.5 inch screen being of a reasonable size. The 4x zoom is easy to operate and the quick zoom button is also quite useful. The wide-angle (30mm) capability was the feature that most attracted me to this camera and it works well, both for landscapes and for interior photography. With a capacity of 10 megapixels the camera should be able to cope with most projects and this resolution can be reduced for day-to-day snap taking. Menus are fairly intuitive and are quick and easy to negotiate and there appears to be a good selection of useful modes including face detection etc. The camera use SD cards but also has an internal memory so you can carry on taking pictures when the card is full. The instruction book is fairly comprehensive and, if not exactly well written, it can be followed with care and a bit of re-reading.

I bought the camera because I wanted a small camera I could pop in a pocket rather than lugging my digital SLR around, this camera gives me that option and it is the same resolution as my much bulkier SLR! At this price I think it represents a good compromise between a small, basic point and shoot camera and something a bit more sophisticated, and it has useful zoom and wide-angle functions that can still be used without fuss on automatic.

Excellent piece of kit!!!

Bought this as a handbag camera - have the Nikon D60 for serious stuff ( which is also excellent incidentally!!)

Great little camera, superb shots, fantastic price and is a WHICH camera of the year - so can't be bad!!

PLEASE READ

LISTEN! the only reason i am rating this camera 1 star is to get the attention of people who are pessimistic and want to know the downsides of a camera.

I know a lot about cameras and this is truely brilliant! i know my review wont impact the score on this camera because over 50 people have voted it 5/5.

trust me this camera is magnificant. so many subtle yet beautiful features. Even the feel is nice, its made out of metal and plastic in perfect quantities.

If you want an easy point and shoot with good quality images but also with nice subtle features then choose this.

Good middle of the road camera

If you're a professional photo nut, this is probably not for you. Then again, if you are, you wouldn't be looking at this camera. All that aside, the kodak Easyshare is the PERFECT camera for the amateur photographer or average person who just wants good pictures and downloadable capabilities. Great memory storage too.

The best part is the help button. Unlike some other cameras, this one really holds your hand through the process and it's virtually impossible to make a mistake. You can toss the manual if you want--that's how helpful it is.

This camera almost does away with Photoshop, but not quite. As I said before, if you want a really good camera for a great price, and you're not looking to have your photos in some contest, this will do nicely.

Would also recommend the SAMSUNG S630--VERY similar with 3X optial zoom and a few more details.

Brilliant

This was my first digital camera (my main camera was a Minolta 7000 SLR, which is now worthless!). Martin Lewis recommended it as a good buy from Amazon and after 18 months I am still very pleased, so much so that I am about to buy one for my wife. I have only one problem with it, so a word of advice to potential buyers. When you turn it on, check the mode dial. On more than one occasion I have taken a photograph and discovered that I have taken 15-20 seconds of video!! Otherwise, excellent value for the money.

great little pocket marvel

I got my T2 on friday (2 days ago) and i love it.

style
it's smaller than I expected which is a good thing. On sunday I had a shirt on rather than a tshirt and I kept the camera in the shirt pocket all day. Consequently I took about 40 snaps I wouldn't ordinarily have done.
I can be carried in a pocket without looking strange! But I would recommend getting a small case either the sony soft case, tamrac neo 3 or crusher PP40 - I've opted for the sony because I'm sad! (don't forget to look at the other companied esp. those who make trendy phone cases - this camera is so small it will fit in those ones)
It is simple, minimalistic and strangely tactile; I can't help opening the shutter cover on it.
Personally I think it is pretty because it is simple, some people might prefer something a little more 'traditional' in looks.
I have the black edition, but I can see the other colours being attractive for people who like coloured IPODs! Add a trendy case like the crusher and it's a great fashion statement.

ease of use
its a fast start to shoot time and has very little shutter lag.
touch screen is easy to use but is worth spending an hour learning the menus and getting used to what the camera does. Don't bother with the manual, read the screen it tells you everything it does and try stuff out. In playing like this, I found it has useful features such as gridlines !!! I guess for those people who need help with horizontal and vertical framing and rule of thirds! - recommend you keep this turned off and be creative!!!
speed of multi-shot is much better than i expected. 3 frames go off as quick as saying `smile everyone'
Face recognition works fine, but like all cameras with this feature, works best with people posing for a shot rather than a random point and click. As such not really tried the smile detection yet as I tend to take more natural snaps of people rather than posed.
Interesting question to ponder - is it better to take a portrait using smile detection or multishoot? Sometimes you never quite know what you get when you use a multishoot or burst mode!
zoom/wide button is a little awkward and it looses marks because of this. This being my 7th sony camera its definitely the hardest to zoom - the buttons just don't fall under the thumb as you would expect. But this is relative and you get used to these things.
focus is great - the multipoint is the best on a sony I've seen. Don't get worried when you see all the focus blocks appearing as you start to press the shutter.

pic quality
takes great pics with everything set to auto.
Colours on outdoor snaps are fantastic
Indoors ones are ok, but all cameras tend to struggle in low light
flash is ok for most pics and the colour isn't too washed out with glare

playback
love the auto rotate feature - it just knows to turn the snaps around for me.
never been a lover of the scapbook they introduced on earlier models, but on this camera it is growing on me. With 4GB of internal ram you can't help but to use it
I prefer to copy snaps by moving the memory stick over to the laptop rather than use a lead connected to the camera, so I am considering adding a memory stick, however that seems like overkill in capacity! Maybe I'll just get used to the idea of using a lead!

features yet to try...
I am fascinated by the auto upload to web sites - will try that as it might make life easy to keep my mum updated about our twin boys.

summary
I don't think this camera is a 5; that also means no point and shoot should be given a 5 in my opinion. The reason being having used several DSLRs I can see the difference in quality of pictures between this style of camera and a DSLR.
But to put this into perspective, i think this is the best Sony point and shoot I've used. It is on a par with the T200 but smaller. Same spec as the T70 so I would choose this one instead. Not tried the T300 but then it has a better spec so expect a little more.

a560

Bought to replace an old sony cyber shot- good price - too many to choose from really:
pros: price competitive, 4x optical zoom, crisp pictures as expected, nice macro function for taking pictures of small things,
cons: batteries (non rechargeable), a bit clunky looking (not a sexy thing),
Does need larger memory card - so annoying to have to fish around amazon to find on that actually comes from amazon (ie not marketplace), which though more expensive will be delivered together and free.
Can anyone recommend a good rechargeable battery option?

Samsung NV24HD Digital Camera - good choice!

In plus

- Very good size, small camera, much smaller than I expect (for some people It may be a bad thing, bud in my opinion this is

very important for this compact camera, I love that size!
- light, very handy, lovely shape, lovely silver (you may get it in black), great concept of shape!
- Really good image quality, but you may get even better effect when you use manual mode and settings, that you can do

wherever you want to do with the picture, not only press and that`s it.
- Stunning menu, best! This fancy system is great.
- Great settings, incredible usefull tools to get best of your time you spend on fun and want to take pictures, rather than

struggling how to set this thing up
- Auto mode gives you comfort but you may need change settings by your own to get best of this magic camera
- ISO range in auto and manual mode is incredible. You will get great brightness and picture in Auto but..
- You can play with brightness and choose perfect one - for you in Manual mode.
- Stupid resistant. I don`t see any weak points of this construction, except flash.
Flash looks quite delicate and you don`t want to hit your camera when flash is ON. This would kill your cute flash.
- Image stabilisation is really OK, but I thought that I might take pictures of moving people with"zoom-in" like"open air

games" on the large field, instead I have got nice camera without sharp pictures each time I take picture someone in action

with zoom on. Without zoom on, you have got quite good stabilisation.
- Video recording is really OK. Res. 640x480 is enough to get best of your memories, but If you like experiments HDTV Res is

not bad (really OK), but needs 3Ghz PC to play smooth.
- After I have shown to my friend the quality of the party recorded by this camera (640x480) they said, that is stunning. In

my opinion gives you good quality with sharp video, something worth seeing.
- Screen in this samsung camera is very, very good quality. Movies recorded (sport game, absolutely anything (I have recorded

television). Quality was just perfect. It`s even more perfect when you buy special three legs stand for that camera,
or when you record and don`t shake while you record like"madman" all the time! Important! Anyway quite fast sets up correct

ISO level for movies.
- Camera has two microphones (stereo), what gives you a great experience of environment you have choose to record. Really

this is very nice!
- On linux you will have some troubles with video files (quicktime), unless you change them to mpg2, mpg4 or just DivX.
- On Windows, without installing quicktime you will not open any of the movie files recorded by this camera
- I still don`t know how to decode and code to proper file format video from e.g mpg2 to force this camera to open video

recorded elswhere. I have checked many magic programs, no luck jet.
- wide lens (Equipped with 24mm wide-angle lens) - you will get pictures of whole your room without stress. Superb.
- Memory socket? wide range of memory you can use.. no problems..
- Nice Software on CD
- Max 8GB memory cards!
- Good quality of Optical zoom
- Really nice universal Plug
- power button very well fitted
- Additional digital effects
- Great playback songs with slideshow! Great for fast presentation to your friends, or family. CooL.

In minus

- Image stabilisation when zoom is in I must say is quite low
- when you zoom, while recording movie you loose sound for a few seconds
what is really bad, I have called samsung and I have been told that all samsung cameras have this,
because instead of sound you could hear moving zoom in the camera. I must say, that I don`t agree!
- no case for camera attached!
- small internal memory, first thing for you is to buy external one (I have bought 4 GB, max is 8GB)
- battery life is enough to record a few short movies and take 160 pictures,
should be a bit better, because this camera gives you stunning fun (I think, but maby I do expect too much!)
- only one USB cable, only one plug.
- getting a bit hot (battery) when is on for a while.. (I think this is normal)
- not very special digital zoom
- only 3.6x optical zoom !!!
- Zoom button a bit strange and not very ergoromic

Finall word

Camera is just great, but I would check panasonic Lumix with 10x Optical zoom,
but I think I wouldn`t change this camera because of incredible good video recording (for that size),
when you don`t use zoom you always have good sound. Second reason why I wouldn`t change this camera is
all fancy stuff you get with this fancy camera, full of superb settings.

I would change two things:
- when you zoom, while recording movie you loose sound for a few seconds
- only 3.6x optical zoom, should be 6, or maby 10!

_________

I hope you appreciate the effort it took to write this customer review!
:-)

Poor build!

I bought this camera last October and have not used it that often. Halfway through a recent holiday the screen went white - as far as I am concerned for no apparent reason as I had not knocked it or dropped it or done anything untoward. Try telling that to the retailer (john Lewis in my case) who said it had been damaged and told me Sony charge a minimum of £90 plus Vat for a repair. These cameras are not"Fit for Purpose" and Sony are obviously not serious about wanting to repair them, which I think is disgusting in our environmentally aware age.

Delighted

This camera is everything I expected, very easy to use, takes great pictures and acceptable video. It is not a professional camcorder but is ideal for simple video clips of holidays and family

Is it a d860 or is it an s860?

I recently purchased this camera in its 'D860'guise, (although I fail to see any difference apart from a slight cosmetic change to the silver bar to the front of the unit the 'specs' being exactly the same), to replace a Samsung 5 mega pixel camera that I have been using trouble free for two years. I wanted a higher spec camera and after looking around I had convinced myself that I wanted a Canon 8mp camera, but upon seeing this on special offer at less than half price, £60.00, I couldn't justify the £120.00 price difference for the Canon, so plumped for another Samsung. I am glad that I did as it has everything required to take fantastic snap shots. It is a good looking unit, the screen is really clear although there seems to be a marked improvement in the quality of the pics once downloaded onto the pc, the colour and sharpness seem much better so dont be tempted to erase the pics until you have reviewed them first. The face detection has become a must use and the anti shake facility comes in useful for those late night in the taverna or bar holiday shots that would otherwise be ruined due to the demon drink! If you need all of the whistles and bells that are great but you never quite get around to using there are better choices to be had but not at this price. I doubt very much that you could do better and in summary, it's a fantastic camera at a budget price. Enjoy.

Great camera for beginner like me

For my first digital camera, I have certainly not been disappointed in purchasing the C603. It has a good sized crystal clear 2.4" screen and I had it working pretty much straight out of the box. The 6.1 mega-pixel resolution (2848x2134) is mind blowing and it has a very easy to use user interface. I haven't got around to reading the manual yet, but I have already discovered plenty of nice features. The A/V out is great for hooking up to the tv - especially useful when you're taking a video of yourself and need a preview - the video itself is pretty good too, although I find you cant zoom whilst in video mode, and the resolution is only 640x480 in video mode (although this should be plenty, and besides, its a stills camera not a camcorder so this is just an added bonus). Movies are recorded in .MOV (quicktime) format.
Lots of crazy features like long exposure time (up to 4 seconds) or consecutive shots (up to 4 autoshots) make for some interesting photos, as well as timer delay.
I've had a play with some of the other camera modes (closeup, self-portrait etc) but I really wont get to test these out until next week... for most photo's, the auto mode works fine, and captures crisp sharp images with excellent colour definition. Interestingly the camera also comes with monochrome or sepia colour modes, which makes for some nice 'ye oldie' style photos.

The camera hooked up to my girlfriends (bless her heart for letting me harass her with the camera all weekend) windows XP computer fine without the need to install drivers, and the photos and movies downloaded pretty quick onto her machine. Most importantly for me however, is that the camera is detected on my Linux machine (Debian w/ 2.6.18 kernel) although the transfer seems a lot slower under Linux (it may need tweaking)

There are some fallbacks which you will need to cover - the camera only has 16Mb internal memory, so it is worth investing in a SD or MMC card. I bought a 1Gig SD card and that holds up to about 900 pictures - or about 45 minutes of video.

Also the batteries that came with the camera are bog standard alkaline. They lasted me about an hour of toying before the camera would no longer power up on them, so unless you want to spend the rest of your life buying batteries, I'd recommend getting some heavy duty rechargeable batteries - I bought some Energizer rechargeable (2500mAh capacity - pack of 4 + charger for under £20) and so far one pair of batteries have lasted the whole day.

overall, its a great little camera with plenty of features.

Oh yeah, its fairly lightweight too.