HP Photosmart mobile camera for iPAQ (Is it worth buying?)

[americaneagle]

Is the HP Photosmart mobile camera for iPAQ worth buying??? I am looking for a simple camera for IPAQ that has decent quality. Has anyone tried it? Does anyone have a better suggestion PPC???

[kahchong]

The new HP Photosmart Mobile Camera is certainly worth buying because this is the world's first pocket pc camera that support SDIO card slot, other brands only support the CF card slot. Besides that, the camera can zoom for up to 4x digital zoom and best of all it can record unlimited video until your memory card has been filled up. Best of all, every photo that you have taken will be automatically synchronized when u start activesync.

It also comes with a software that improves the IPAQ Image Viewer with the IPAQ Image Zone that is better and can view images bigger and faster. I hope that you will like it.

Kah Chong.

[Trimac20]

Sounds interesting, but I quick question. What is the maximum resolution you can record video in? Anything less than 640 x 480 is just plain unviewable. Also, is there the ability to pause, zoom.etc (unlike many digital cameras)? What is the flash like? Thanks.

[marlof]

You can read a review of the HP camera at iPAQabilities (http://www.ipaqabilities.com/reviews_articles/articles/1203-photosmart_ipaq.php). It doesn't do 640x480 (I agree: that would be great, but 320x240 is better than nothing!). An alternative would be the Spectec SD camera that pocketnow.com (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=387) reviewed, but it looks like that one has some lesser specs.

[devhen]

Hey, americaneagle!

I am the one who reviewed the Spectec SD Camera for pocketnow.com (http://www.pocketnow.com). I also own the hp Photosmart Mobile. I would recommend buying the Photosmart over the Spectec. Although it is just a bit more expensive, it is definately worth it. The extra resolution on still images is a definate plus and the hp Photosmart Mobile is an overall higher quality device. The video shooting ability is by far my favorite feature of this camera. Using your device's microphone it also records sound. This is an awesome feature. The only down side is that, if you're like me and your device only has an SD slot, you have little memory to record video to. If you have a CF slot as well then you're set. You can tell the Photosmart Mobile where to save recorded videos and photos. A high capacity CF card means you can record lengthy videos that, althought they are only 320x240, are impressively clear and most certainly usable. If you don't have a CF slot, you might consider the Pocket PC Techs (http://www.pocketpctechs.com) RAM upgrade (if available for your device). This will give you extra built-in RAM where you can store your videos. After all, the hp Photosmart Mobile SD camera, in conjunction with a Pocket PC, is the definately the sleekest, sleuthest camera for its price (not counting the $ it costs to buy a Pocket PC--I'm assuming that you already have one which you use enough to justify the cost). Without a flash, these two SD cameras aren't great for indoor and low light situations. However, I found that shooting videos indoors worked out pretty well. Although they weren't super bright, things were definately visible. In fact, it seemed to me that indoor videos were brighter and looked better than indoor still photos...

Anyway, there's my 2 cents. Have fun.