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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Saturday, May 28, 2005

HP Photosmart R717 review

MacWorld:

The R717 feels well-constructed, with a stainless-steel front, subtly sculpted for a comfortable grip. The 1.8-inch LCD is bright and clear, and menus are very easy to read and navigate. Like many of the new HP cameras, the R717 includes a system designed to help beginners along.

The R717 excels at taking panoramic images. In panorama mode, the camera provides a transparent overlay of the left third of your previous image to help you align it with the next shot.

I didn’t have a problem with red-eye, but an in-camera feature is supposed to let you fix red-eye-ridden shots after you take them.

The color in the images I took with the R717 was very good, and the detail was good.

I've been using this camera for over a month and I'm not horribly impressed. The picture quality is so-so and often show pixelization. The red eye is horrific, way worse than my last camera. The video quality is lousy, at just 320 x 240, 1/4 the resolution of my previous camera (which was just 3.2 megapixels.

I got this camera because its predecessor, the R617 (I think), was very highly rated. The R717, which offers higher resolution, seemed like an obvious choice. It wasn't, and it's reviewed more poorly than its predecessor (except for in this review I'm quoting).

Overall, I don't recommend it at all. I'll look at the highly rated Canon SD400 next.

[ Posted at 1:23 PM | Permalink ]