HP PhotoSmart 620 Review

Overall Rating

Good software and the camera is easy to use

the flash is really inconsistent and it sucks batteries like crazy. Maybe you get 15-20 indoor pictures (with flash) on one set of 4 AA's

Well I looked around and did my homework and decided to buy this HP PhotoSmart 620 Digital camera. (April 2003) This was the best camera for the money at that time. It is an easy to use point and shoot camera with decent picture quality and good color spectrum. One problem is that it focuses the image for the distance of the center of the image. You have to keep this in mind when shooting. Many of the indoor pictures turned out blurry because the shutter exposeure time is so long in low light. Using the flash helps, when it works. One shot the flash will work fine, the next shot it will be a dim flicker. I bought a tripod which helps immensly for indoor shots. It really has a battery problem. It only uses the top 20% of the power in the batteries then says they are dead. A voltmeter tells me otherwise. After 3 months when taking bright outdoor pictures in the winter time the camera "broke". It started over compensating the light levels and all outdoor pictures came out very dark or totally black. I contacted HP warranty center and they were great. They paid the shipping and handling and got my camera repaired and back to me hassle free in five days. Truly excellent service. They had issues in the past but I have to say that management has gotten it's act together and done a great job re-organizing their system to make it fast efficient and now user friendly.
In the end the camera does work ok but I wish I had bought something else. I have since seen friends buy better systems for less money.

Members' Comments oncjsearle's Review

• stylist35 on 29th May 2005

  I got this camera about two years ago. It was in the moderate price range and was a newer model for the same amount of money as the older different brands. It works well indoors, but outdoors is limited when it comes to shooting snow scenes. If it is dark outside and I shoot snow all I see are snowflakes,or blackness.If it is light outside the pictures are fine. The batteries do die quickly but I solved that buying high quality rechargeable. I don't use it every day. I am currently looking for another digital camera, or a digital/video camera. I can't zoom in the way I would like to catch a squirrel in a tree about 30-40 feet away, and I totally missed the opportunity to catch the wild turkeys that graced my yard this spring. It doesn't zoom in enough and my picture program leaves the photos grainy.