Kodak EasyShare CX6200 Review

Overall Rating

CHEAP, relatively small and lightweight, extremely easy to use, impressive picture quality

few features, lacklustre LCD screen, no lens cover

Don't let the Kodak CX6200 absurd low price tag and lack of features deceive you. If there's a digital camera that gives the most bang for the buck then this just might well be it. The price rivals that of the other, low-end digital cameras in the market with sometimes unheard of brandnames and VGA resolutions. But the "Kodak Colour Science" puts the CX6200 miles ahead of these cameras and can even compete with the more expensive 3.0 megapixel products on the market.


It doesn't have manual white balance settings, no exposure modes, no macro. Heck, it doesn't even have a lens cover. Feature-wise the CX6200 doesn't have much to offer. It is a 2.0 megapixel point-and-shoot camera with a silver plastic body and a 2X digital zoom. IT has 8MB internal memory and support for Secure Digital card slot. Not too many buttons to fiddle with here. A three-step dial (Power OFF, picture mode, video mode), four-way navigation button, OK button, menu and picture review buttons. This makes it very easy to operate. Turn it on and take a picture. You can then review the picture and delete it if you are not satisfied.


What it does, however, it does VERY well. For a point and shoot camera and the price (I paid UKP70 for mine), the CX6200 produces very impressive pictures. Kodak digital cameras are known for producing pictures with high colour saturation, and the CX6200 is no exception. This you can either love or hate. Professionals may not be so keen on this, but for on-the-go tourists who want to take good-looking, colourful and well-exposed pictures without having to fiddle with numerous settings and buttons, this camera may well be a godsend. The CX6200 even fared well with shots taken against direct sunlight. By setting the exposure compensation (the only thing, aside from the flash, that you can actually control manually) to a higher level, the camera yielded well-exposed pictures even if lighting was not optimally placed. Other, more expensive cameras I have owned and used did not do as well in these situations, making me even more impressed.


Outdoor pictures look good, indoor pictures are even better. The colours are rich, with sharp detail, and the fill-in flash balances lighting almost perfectly. Not only is this the perfect tourist camera, it is also highly suitable for taking party pictures indoors, provided of course that the party is not in total darkness.


Kodak has of coursed skimped on a lot of things to sell this camera cheap. There is no lens cover, so make sure you put the camera in a case when not in use. Also, the LCD is not of high quality. It is OK when used outdoors, but indoors it can be rather dark, grainy and fuzzy. The LCD is not completely reliable when viewing pictures you have just taken, so you'll have to download the pictures to your PC before you can judge them accordingly.


If you are looking for a cheap (but adept) 2.0 megapixel camera and don't care too much about manual settings, white balance, exposure modes, etc. or are simply stripped for cash and in dire need of a digital camera that has a low price but still yields great results, then the Kodak CX6200 gets my two thumbs up. Great price, great-looking pictures. Now that's good value for money.


A sample of pictures I have taken with this camera cam be found at:

http://home.chello.no/hectorjr/

Members' Comments onheffer's Review

• callan cool on 26th Dec 2003

  Amazingly well written op