HP PhotoSmart R707 - Expert Reviews

Award: Highly Recommended!

Review summary: At press briefings during PMA 2004 HP staff quietly admitted they had finally realized that the company's digital cameras suffered from something of an 'image problem'. Big, seemingly designed to resemble a house brick, and made from the kind of ...

Pros: Good resolution, clean images with few processing artifacts and no over-sharpening, Vivid yet natural colors, Efficient noise reduction - even at high ISO and with long exposures, Excellent auto white balance in all but the most extreme situations, ...

Cons: Only two aperture settings, An ISO 50 setting would have been nice to cut down the need for noise reduction, Even the best quality setting uses quite heavy JPEG compression, Some fall-off of sharpness in the corners, especially at widest aperture, ...

Verdict: First impressions of the R707 are overwhelmingly positive - it is beautifully built, feels 'right' in the hand and is responsive enough for most every day photography.

Review summary: There's no TIFF or RAW mode available on this camera.

Pros: Decent image quality ; Lots of cool toys for under $350 ; Excellent Instant Share system + software bundle ; Useful Adaptive Lighting feature ; Can undelete last photo taken ; LCD can be used in low light ; In-camera redeye reduction feature ; AF ...

Cons: Noisy images ; Limited manual controls ; Unimpressive macro mode ; Lengthy write times ; To get video out you must buy the dock ; Slow battery charging

Verdict: If you've been visiting this site for a while you know my position on proprietary batteries like the one used by the R707. For one, they're expensive -- buying another one (which I recommend) will set you back $50. My other complaint, that you cannot ...

Review summary: A camera that's packed with all the gadgets imaginable. And a few more to boot

Verdict: PROS: Smart metal design. Solid five-megapixel images . CONS: High levels of noise. Occasionally sluggish.

Review summary: 5.1 MP with 24x total zoomâ€"3x optical, 8x digitalâ€"plus exclusive HP Real Life technologies.

Pros: Compact size, Excellent ergonomics for a super-compact camera, Excellent image quality at ISO 100

Cons: Minimal exposure control, Limited aperture range, Lots of noise at ISO 400

Review summary: The stylish new HP PhotoSmart R707, is the first model to feature HP Real Life technologies with HP Instant Share, a technology that makes sharing, printing, and saving digital photos easy. In addition, the HP PhotoSmart R707 digital camera offers 5.1 ...

Verdict: Bottom line - the HP PhotoSmart R707 is an affordable, compact entry-level camera. At the time of this review (June 2004), the HP R707 is an amazing deal for a 5-megapixel camera with a street price of just $349. Couple that with the versatile R ...