HP PhotoSmart 433

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Satisfactory
Range & Quality of Features	Average
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Durability	Good
Overall Look & Design	Poor
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Lightweight, easy to  use
Disadvantages:	Sliding lens cover easily opens and runs your batteries down quick

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I got this camera as part of a package that also included the HP 1200 Psc series printer/scanner copier all-in-one. It has taken loads of picture of reasonable quality. Unfortunately I didn't get all the extra cables, the tripod, mains adater or the camera dock and wasn't expecting to find any of them either. But I did get the USB cable and a piece that attaches to the base of the camera prior to putting it on the camera dock as a sort of incentive I think. I must also add that it comes with a 64MB SD memory card and I know it can be upgraded to at least 512MB as I have done so and will hold up to and over 1000 photos, but not that much if you take a lot of video clips.

***Specifications***

Resolution - 3.27MP (2096 by 1560) Total pixel count, but only 3.14MP (2048 by 1536) effective pixels. Video clips are 1/4 VGA (320 by 240) Total pixel count.
Sensor - Diagonal 6.73 mm (1/2.7 inch, 4:3 format) CCD
Colour depth - 30 Bit (10 bits by 3 colours)
Storage - 16MB internal flash memory and a slot for SD or MMC memory card.
Lens - Fixed focal length is 5.67mm and the F- Number is f/4.0 and f/8.0
Viewfinder - Optical with no diopter adjustment
Zoom - 3 x Digital
Focus - Fixed focus range of 0.85m to infinity
Shutter speed - 1/1000 to 4 seconds
Built-in-flash - 1-6 seconds recharge
Flash working distance - 2.5m
Flash Settings - Auto (default), auto withred-eye reduction, flash on, flash off and finally night.
Image Display - 1.5 inch LED, backlight, TFT LCD with 61,380 pixels
Image capture modes - Still 9default), self-timer has a ten second delay standard for both stills and videos. Video takes 15 streams per second, streaming to the memory and is limited by the amount of memory you have.
Audio capture - Has to be activated after you have taken a still by holding down the shutter button, but for videos it is automatic.
Exposure mode settings - Auto (default) and action.
Exposure compensation. can be changed manually from -2.0 to +2.0 in 0.5 adjustments.
White balance setting - Auto (default), sun, shade, tungsten and flourescent.
ISO speed settings - you can choose between auto (default) or 100, 200 and 400.
Colour settings - full colour or black and white
Playback magnification - about 3x and 6x
Compression format - JPEG (EXIF) for stills and MPEG-1 for video.

***Features***

This camera has 24 different features:
1. Optical View Finder - This allows you frame a person prior to taking a picture or video clip.
2. Viewfinder light - This light has two settings Solid Red and Flashing Red. If it is solid red then you are recording a video, if however it is flashing then it could mean a number of things, it could mean that the self-timer is counting down, the flash is charging, an image is being processed or there has been an error.
3. Zoom in/Out - This is actually two button, one for zooming in and one for zooming out. The zoom in button has a picture of a single arrow pointing up and the zoom out button has three arrows pointing up on it. This makes zooming an easy operation.
4. Wrist strap hole - Although I did not get a strap supplied with my camera there is a handy hole on the right-hand side to fit one.
5. Memory/USB Light - This again has two different settings, but this time its Solid Green and Flashing Green. Solid green means that the camera is on or that the USB has been connected. Blinking green again has many meanings, the camera is starting up, the batteries are charging, sending or recieving data via the USB or writing/writing from the memory card.
6. Up/ Down & OK Buttons - The up and down arrows areused to scroll through menus or images. The O.K button displays the capture, playback, and setup menus and to select options in the menus.
7. Image Display - Allows you view pictures or video clips before and after you have taken the desired image and to view menus etc.
8. Share button - Turns the share menu on/off.
9. Playback button - Turns playback on/off.
10. Live view button - Turns Live view on/off.
11.Power adapter connector - A jack plug for HP C8912 AC power adapter.
12.USB connector - A jack plug for USB attachment to go.
13. T.V Connector - A jack plug for a audio/video cable to go in.
14. Video/self-timer light - as before it has two settings Solid and flashing, Solid means camera is recording video and flashing is when the self-timer is activated.
15. Flash - This flashes when you take a photo to give off extra light.
16. Lens cover/power switch - protects lens from dust and acts as the on/off power switch.
17. Microphone - To record the sound of your surroundings whilst creating a video clip.
18. Tripod Mount - Allows the camera to be mounted on a tripod.
19. Camera Dock connector - Allows you to attach it to the HP8886 camera dock
20. Battery/Memory card door - insert batteries (2 x AA Batteries) and SD memory card
21. Shutter button - Takes a picture. Push all the way down then release to take picture and press and hold afterwards to add sound.
22. Video button - Records video clips press once to start and again to stop.
23. Mode button - Has three settings self-timer,Action and Normal settings.
24. Flash button - Lets you select the right flash setting for the image you are taking.

***Compatibility & Software***
Compatable with windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and comes with its own software, but however if your like me and have a HP Desktop PC then the required drivers shall already be pre-installed (mind you the software takes ages to load and doesn't have the editing tools that I would have expected.)

***Price***

Ranges from £49.99 to £79.99 although I'm not sure as it was part of a package. I now believe that it has been superceeded. The combined package of camera and printer was £149.99 from either Curry's or Comet. (I always get the two muddle up, so it really came Curomet).

***Other information***

The batteries take around 15 hours to fully recharge if charged through the camera. It has a 90 day limited warranty if you live in the United States or a 1 year limited warranty for the rest of the world.
HP offer a wide range of helplines mainly online only though.
Customers with disabilities should contact:
www.hp.com/hpinfo/community/accessibility/prodserv
Other Information is offered at:
www.photosmart.hp.com or:-
www.hp.com/photosmart
Customer support:-
www.hp.com/support
For telephone support in the UK dial +44 (0)870 010 4320.
There are other numbers available but because I am a resident of the United Kingdom I found it applicable. If you are reading this from another country, then I'm sure that these numbers can be obtained from one of the website addresses above

***Conclusion***

This is a very cheap and reliable little camera, but as with everything it has its flaws, the first one being that the lense cover slides across at its own accord and runs the batteries out unexpectedly. The other is just the general length that the batteries last and have known them to only last literally 5 minutes. But this could be down to the batteries that I am using or the charger.The picture quality is reasonable,but compared to what you can get now its not so good. it also seems to pick up blue stronger than any other colour. I would recommend this camera as a first buy camera as it is cheap and serves the basic purpose of taking pictures and has easy to understand menus and simple push button operations.