Acer CE-5330

I bought this at what I thought was a pretty unbeatable price online just a few months ago but soon after receiving it I wondered if I'd made the right decision.

Dont get me wrong its not all bad but I have had some problems getting photos, particularly those taken indoors or in low light conditions, to not appear at all fuzzy or otherwise out of focus. I haven't had this problem with other digital cameras so that doesn't impress me ...
...of help either unfortunately, there again im no expert on photography but I would say if your a beginner, this may not be the best buy for you. Generally, landscape shots taken outside in good weather conditions do turn out well but there does appear to be an issue with the focus not being quite set right when taking photos of the house or other shots inside and I have tried to fix this but I haven't totally got to the bottom of it yet, so I haven't ... more

I bought this at what I thought was a pretty unbeatable price online just a few months ago but soon after receiving it I wondered if I'd made the right decision.

Dont get me wrong its not all bad but I have had some problems getting photos, particularly those taken indoors or in low light conditions, to not appear at all fuzzy or otherwise out of focus. I haven't had this problem with other digital cameras so that doesn't impress me much and I didn't find the manual a great deal of help either unfortunately, there again im no expert on photography but I would say if your a beginner, this may not be the best buy for you. Generally, landscape shots taken outside in good weather conditions do turn out well but there does appear to be an issue with the focus not being quite set right when taking photos of the house or other shots inside and I have tried to fix this but I haven't totally got to the bottom of it yet, so I haven't discovered any quick fix for it unfortunately (hence why im giving the picture quality a low-ish rating, although it can take good pictures, given the right conditions).

The other problem I've had with it relates to the battery life/battery indicator. The battery life isnt particularly impressive in my opinion (about average, depending on how many pics and particularly video clips you play back on the LCD screen and how many hi-res pics you take but probably generally around 3-5 hours of being switched on, something like that) and at least a couple of times it has shown via the battery indicator that the batteries are only half used but then suddenly it flashes red and completely shuts down with really no warning. Sometimes if you leave it a minute and press the power button again it switches back on again and goes back to showing that you have half the battery usage still left but its still pretty annoying, especially if you just missed a shot because of that! so I wouldn't say that the battery life and the battery indicator are all that great...

Because of that and the focus problem, I wouldn't say that its a very reliable camera. Its cheap enough and if you just want a rock bottom 5 megapixel camera and have the patience to try and figure out all the settings and have plenty of batteries to use with it to hand then its not so bad, when it takes a clear shot its pretty good (about what you'd expect for a high resolution like 5 megapixel, pretty detailed) and I like the fact that the LCD screen is nice and big (2.0 inches) and you can switch it off to conserve battery life if you so wish, plus if you put in an extra external SD card, you can record with the video option as long as there's space on the card, so it doesnt limit you to any particular length of time per clip...though the video quality isnt particularly amazing.

It comes with a carry pouch and a battery charger, which are useful items, the pouch is good for protecting the camera from getting scratches on the large LCD screen.

However another downside is that it mentions in the manual that its only compatible with SD cards up to 512mb so it wont accept 1GB size cards or anything higher than 512mb...

As far as the professional quality of the camera itself, I think the old saying applies here, you know 'you get what you pay for'.

If you want a reliable 5 megapixel camera for taking one-off photos say at special occasions etc. (photos that you cant really go back and re-take at another time, like wedding photos etc.) then I wouldn't recommend it, its just not reliable enough in my experience but if you want a cheap camera with a high resolution just to have a bit of fun with and you have the time and patience for it then I'd say go for it, it really depends on what you want it for. 

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