Best new toy I've bought.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great, fun, feature rich, good price for the Mpxls.

Cons: Can be confusing to use, not sleek looking, batteries not long lasting.

The Bottom Line: 
A wonderful, fun, and impressive camera that actually lives up to it's standards. Also, good value for being so feature rich, 3.1 Megapixels, optical/digital (2/3) zoom, and overall stylishness.

Author's Review
This is a great camera for beginners to semi-serious photographers. First off, this is a 3.1 Megapixel camera, and I bought it for about $599 (after a $100 rebate), which is a very good deal. After doing a lot of research, I think this was the best balance of:

1. Brand reliability and quality (Kodak has been around a long time, kiddies)
2. Optical (2x) and Digital (3x) zoom. Other cameras have more/less, but their prices weren't good in comparison.
3. Features: tons of extra dials and buttons that adjust aperture or how much light is let in to the camera.
4. LCD display and menu navigation.
5. Aesthetically pleasing and size--not as small as the Canons, but this camera looks pretty nice and impressive. Other cameras (like Sonys) are just plain ugly.
6. It comes with a 16MB card for storing your pictures (not the piddly 4MBs that other cameras provide), so I haven't seen the need to buy another storage card yet, but I might if I am on extended vacation.

In using, I was surprised and pleased that there were so many features (even though I don't need to use half of them), and I loved the ability to take black and white photos. With all of those buttons, things can get a bit confusing in terms of what button you press to take the pictue (and number of times and duration you have to do that) and what all of the little dials do. I have to admit that I am a photography newbie, but I still love this camera, and it just takes some experimentation to figure out what settings are best for what type of pictures you are taking.

What I love best about this camera is the LCD screen and the menu navigation, which is easy to use. Instantly being able to preview your pictures is a big plus, and it is easy to navigate through the pictures and even magnify them!

The pictures look great printed out, as well, on a regular ink jet printer! I've read other reviews where people have thought that the Kodak software package is pretty useless, which is pretty acurate, but it is more than sufficient for my needs. I find that picture sharing and organization software that comes with most people's CD-RWs (which everyone should/probably has) is great for doing any type of album organization or printing. For editing pictures, any free or trial software is more than adequate for me.

The only cons I can think of are mostly superficial. The front zoom lens does not fully retract in to the camera, which makes it look a little bulkier when the camera is off. Some of the functions of the camera are a little confusing for novice camera users. The one thing I have issues with is the battery life--I've used it for a whole day's events with no problem, and I don't know if I should consider that an adequate battery life or not. If I was taking pictures of an extremely important event, I would probably get a spare battery just in case.

All in all, this is one of the best cameras that come straight out of the box and straight in to use without having to buy tons of expensive accessories! I think this would be a great camera for novices (even if some of the features go to waste) or photographic experts. Plus, you get a lot of oohs and aahs for a camera that actually performs--what more could you want except to impress people with your knowledge of feature rich digital cameras?