Flashe Reviews

I have a 32 MB Sandisk Compact Flash card for my Nikon Coolpix 950, a 2-megapixel digital cam. This card will allow you to record about 50 pictures at the standard (640x480) resolution, so if you find you're not a 'power user' of your camera, it should be plenty - and the dollars-to-megabyte ratio is right!

However, if you regularly shoot at higher resolutions such as 1600x1200 (i.e. 8" x 10" photo quality), you won't be able to fit 20 photos on this card. In that event, you might want to think about going for their 96MB card (also available from Amazon!)

With this size card you might also want to think about going for Sandisk's inexpensive USB card reader - it's up to 50x as fast and a lot less hassle than hooking the camera up to the computer!

At 1024 x 768 resolution, this memory card holds 200-390 images on my Polaroid PDC-700 camera (that's like 8-16 rolls of film). The price and capacity are just right for weekend trips or special events. **Go crazy** and take pictures of anything and everything that catches your eye!

I took 89 pictures in 5 hours at my company's "Relay for Life" event on Friday, and really enjoyed not having to "budget" my photos or worry about running out of film. The image quality was excellent, and downloading was quick & easy with a digital film reader.

I'm planning a 2-week trip to Spain this fall, and am considering an additional 32MB SanDisk memory card just in case I get **Too Crazy**. Does anyone know if they make a storage case for spare memory cards?

Unless you carry a notebook computer to constantly dump your digital camera images to, you will likely have noticed that the memory card that came with your digital camera fills up rather quickly, especially at higher resolutions. Why camera companies are unwilling to shell out the extra few dollars for larger capacity cards to include with their products is a mystery of marketing, but the fact that the dinky 4, 8 and 16 MB cards fill up with photos of family and adventures rather quickly. That's why this little card is such a gem.

32MB is a good compromise in the size/cost ratio, although the 48MB and 64MB cards are also a good deal. The Sandisk brand is a relative unknown to the consumer -- at least under that name. Sandisk supposedly makes memory cards and sells them directly to the camera manufacturers, so chances are the card that came with your camera is made by them. As far as reliability goes, the memory works just as well and holds just as much as better known name brands which cost tens of dollars more.

All in all, the Sandisk memory is a good product at a good price, and it will make your digital picture taking so much more enjoyable as you forget about having to pace yourself concerning the amount of photos you take!

Have been running Windows XP. XP recognizes it as a generic fax/modem and answers the phone everytime it rings as a fax interfering with incoming calls. Creative has not released a driver for XP. It connects about 30 to 50% of the time on first try. Once connected the connection fails about 50% of the time. Have tried to get help from Creative, but nothing yet.

IT WAS THAT TIME,I HAD BEEFED UP MY RAM,VIDEO CARD UPDATED TO A NEW VERSION OF AOL,THE TIME CAME FOR A NEW MODEM.I READ UP ON SOME OF THE MODEMS BUT I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS FACING WHEN I WALKED INTO THE LOCAL COMPUTER STORE.BRANDS OF MODEMS I NEVER HEARD OF AND MY CONCERN WAS IT GOING TO BE THE RIGHT CHOICE? 3 CLERKS GAVE ME 3 OPINIONS WHICH DIDNT HELP.I FINALLY GOT THE CREATIVE MODEM 5630.IT BOASTED PNP,WELL THIS WASNT THE CASE,AFTER 3 TRIES I GOT IT TO LOAD THE DRIVERS AND THE OTHER ADD ONS WHICH WERE A PLUS.INTALLATION WAS 10 MINS TOPS. MY CONNCECTION SPEEDS WERE INCREASED.I RARELY CONNNECT BELOW 48000BPS.DEFINITELY AN INCREASE FROM 44000.ASIDE FROM THE PLUG AND PLAY DIFFICULTY I WOULD SAY IT WAS WORTH THE PRICE.

This modem is a real gem and a steal at it's price. I owned one for 3 years until it got zapped during a thunderstorm recently and now I am hunting around for another one. You get rock solid connections and excellent throughput and download speeds but one thing that really stands out is its ability to shrug off bad line conditions. I had installed dsl before my modems demise and it performed flawlessly even with the additional line noise brought on by dsl. If you are looking around for a modem as backup to your dsl/cable then look no further. You will be hard pressed to find a finer modem. BTW my pc is a Pentium 200mhz just so you know that this modem is totally undemanding on cpu cycles, in fact its minimum system requirements is a 100mhz cpu! If you look at other int modems out there you will see much higher cpu requirements because the modem depends on your cpu to do some of its work, but not this one! An excellent buy! No other modem comes close in terms of performance.

I live in the UK and electronic equipment costs much more here than in the USA. But I was going to visit friends Stateside and saw the Sandisk 256Mb Compact flash card on offer at Amazon.Com. So I bought one and had it shipped to my friends in Florida (Amazon.Com won't ship this type of item outside Uncle Sam-land).

It works fine on my Minolta Dimage7 digital camera. Some Dane-Elec cards had been causing problems with this camera but a Minolta firmware upgrade cured that. But the Sandisk card worked OK "out of the box" just like that, and the price was right. What more can one say!!

I have my cannon S100 for six months now. The camera is so small that I take it anywhere I go and take pictures of everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

When you go here and there taking pictures there are two things that can stop you happy travel: Battery life and storage space.

This card cross over any storage limits you could have.

Let me tell you a few words about
this little fellow:
1. Sandisk is known for its great compatibility so it isn't ikely that you will have compatibility problems
2. Used with my cannon S100 Digital Elph it can hold:
- 1550 pics in low resolution Hard to beat for Web publishing or e-mailing
- 420 pics in medium resolution. This resolution is really good for prints up to 5 x 7
- 170 pics in high resolution. Pretty good for one single card. Outstanding prints up to 8 x 10
3. No problems with speed. Sandisk cards are as fast as any other.

In my experience 170 pictures at resolution for prints of 8x10 is enough for a complete weekend of pictures, but if you feel you are running out of space you just change to medium resolution for prints up to 5x7.

With this card you can forget the frustrating experience of running out of space in the sunset of Sunday the weekend you decided to expend in the beach.

You won't find this card at this very good price anywhere else, so go for it

I purchased this sandisk 256 mb compact flash card as I don't want to keep changing cards from 16mb or 32 mb. If you are using a high end digital camera, I would hightly recommend that you purchase this card. Remember, to get great quality prints you need to shoot on a "fine" setting and this quickly uses up memory. That will also allow you room to crop out. You want to make sure that when you are using your camera on a special occasion, you don't have to stop what you are doing and have to change cards.

I used this 128MB Sandisk CF card with my Nikon 885 digital camera on a recent trip to Vietnam. While it does store plenty of high quality images, the issue I have with this card is the read/write rate. As the card fills up with pictures it becomes slow to store the picture you just took. I estimate that this took up to 15 seconds, an eternity while waiting to take another picture. Even more painful is reviewing and deleting pictures. Going through thumbnails of about 100 pictures took 5-10 minutes as the camera struggled to read from the memory card. I also took along a Lexar 16MB 8X card that displayed my pictures almost instantaneously. This is a lower capacity card but it gave me a comparison. Sandisk doesn't do a very good job of stating its read/write speeds. These speeds(along with # of MBs) is what distinguishes mainstream from professional quality cards. Professional photographers don't have time to wait to take another picture or review their older pictures. I am buying a large capacity Lexar 12X card to be my primary high storage card and the Sandisk card will be my backup for overflow situations.

One of the "must-haves" for digital cameras is the ability to store a significant number of pictures. The SanDisk 128Mb card provided the ability to store over 700, which was adequate for our upcoming two-week vacation.

Why the SanDisk? I checked out compatibility (actually, the Kodak DX3600 required an upgrade to provide support for this product), and reviewed the ... organization's site ... . The dollars/megabyte, from one of the bigger manufacturers, was right. A five-year warranty closed the deal for me. Finally, it's proven itself reliable for the past few months. NO problems whatsoever.

I bought this about 10 hours before leaving for Disney World. I use it in a Nikon Coolpix 700 (2.1 mp) set at the basic mode (1600 x 1200, apx 240k per pic with full compression). I took 471 pictures and had room for over 100 more. Download of 108 meg with a USB card reader took about 5 minutes. A side effect I had not counted on was that write times increased as the card got full. With a 16MB card I never noticed this but toward the end of 128MB the delay was very noticeable. "Boot time" (pause after turning on the camera) was increased too. Again, something that was never an issue with a smaller card. A good reason to hang on to your older, smaller ram cards for things like sporting events frames per second are important. If picture quality is essential to your work, the size fo the card makes full TIFF images (8 meg per) a viable option. Memory may not be cheaper for a long time. I paid the same for this card that I paid for a 16MB card 2 years ago. Highly recomended.

I Highly recommend the XD digital cameras and XD memory cards. I purchased a Fujifilm S5000 digital camera which came with a standard Fujifilm 16mb card. I upgraded to this Fujifilm 128mb XD card and have had no regrets or problems. A good deal for a price of around $50 to $65 dollars. You can double the memory, 256mb, for around $110 dollars. I found the Olympus 128mb XD card is cheaper in price than the Fuji, but when I researched them both, the Olympus card when you touch the connectors (example: removing from camera) the memory, in some incidents, have been erased. This was a risk I was not going to chance for $2 to $6 dollars less in price. In the 6M quality mode ( 2816 x 2120 pixels ) I can get approx 90 photo's and 165 photo's in the 3M quality mode ( 2048 x 1536 pixels ).

The XD high speed can greatly enhance the user's experience with the product. A photographer can take & store new pictures or view existing images on the LCD screen more quickly with the XD Picture Card than with other, slower media formats. This means less battery drainage!

The Con's - *Small: could easily be misplaced or lost. *Price: the XD card is a little bit more expensive than other memory cards, but you get what you pay for!

I Highly recommend the XD digital cameras and XD memory cards. I purchased a Fujifilm S5000 digital camera which came with a standard Fujifilm 16mb card. I upgraded to this Fujifilm 128mb XD card and have had no regrets or problems. A good deal for a price of around $50 to $65 dollars. You can double the memory, 256mb, for around $110 dollars. I found the Olympus 128mb XD card is cheaper in price than the Fuji, but when I researched them both, the Olympus card when you touch the connectors the memory, in some incidents, have been erased. This was a risk I was not going to chance for $2 to $6 dollars less in price. In the 6M quality mode ( 2816 x 2120 pixels ) I can get approx 90 photos and 165 photos in the 3M quality mode ( 2048 x 1536 pixels ).

The XD high speed can greatly enhance the user's experience with the product. A photographer can take & store new pictures or view existing images on the LCD screen more quickly with the XD Picture Card than with other, slower media formats. This means less battery drainage!

The Con's,
Small: could easily be misplaced or lost.
Price: the XD card is a little bit more expensive than other memory cards, but you get what you pay for!

the Fuji and Olympus xD cards DO NOT cost 2-21/2x the other types available and in use today--I understand change is difficult for some folks but telling untruths about a new product is unacceptable---the xD card is faster and uses less battery juice which helps the photographer by making battery charge or change less frequent(saves money and time)--therefore, any small difference in initial purchase costs will be repaid many times over duting the life of the card--watch where you buy electronics and get the best prices before you spend your dollars (buy Amazon.com)

If you already know how to set up a dial-up connection on your Windows 9x machine, then connecting to the Internet with your PocketPC using this modem is a no-brainer; you'll be up and running within 5-10 minutes of taking it out of the box.

I orginally bought this modem to use with my Cassiopeia E-105, I have used it many times on my freind's Cassiopeia E-115, and now I use it regularly on my Cassiopeia E-125. Despite some of the other customer reviews for this product, please note:

THIS MODEM WORKS PERFECTLY ON THE CASSIOPEIA E-105, E-115 AND E-125.

If you have one of the units mentioned above and you can't get this modem to work, something is wrong: either you received a defective modem, a defective PDA, or you have some program installed on your PocketPC that is preventing the modem from working correctly.

I agree that the manual that comes with the modem is pretty spare, but I didn't need it to use this modem. The modem itself is a no-brainer, just plug it in. It's PocketPC Dial-up Networking that's the hard part, and if you already know how to do it on your Windows 9x system, then it's a piece of cake.

The modem is hot swappable, meaning that you don't need to do anything special before using it each time. Just open up the compact flash port on your device, remove any other devices or cards you have plugged into the port (if any), plug this modem into the port, open up your ISP connection and hit connect. You don't even need to turn the device off and on or anything like that.

I travel frequently on business and used to take along my 7.1 lb Dell laptop. In general, however, when on the road I really only need e-mail access and light word processing. When I recently upgraded from an old Palm III to the Compaq iPAQ pocket pc, I picked up the Pretec modem as well. It is tiny, so that it fits easily into a small case that also carries the AC adapter and a few other odds and ends. But it works great. I have had no difficulty accessing my AOL e-mail, using the AOL Anywhere software. I had a bit more trouble configuring the software to get access to my network, but that is up and running too now. Granted, the manual didn't help much. But the software is pretty intuitive and any Windows 9x user who set up dial-up networking on their PC will have no trouble setting up dial-up networking on their Pocket PC.

The Pretec is remarkably tough. I have dropped it 3 feet onto a hardwood floor, banged it into a wall, and generally abused it. No problems. Like the old Time watch ads...it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Download speed is great. The only major problem is that it is a real power hog. Keep that AC adapter handy. Recommended.

I use it on the road with my Cassiopeia and it has worked in every hotel room, giving me internet access on my PDA. I do wish it would make some noise while trying to connect however since I can never tell if it dialed out of the hotel correctly.

UPDATE: Well, I got it a few days ago and took some test shots with it on my Canon A40, plus tried both it and a more expensive SanDisk (128mb) card with the SimpleTech USB CF reader. I really didn't see a significant difference. Both were plenty fast in the camera and in the transfer. I cannot find fault.

I'll stick by the words below. You need to do your homework because some cameras don't work well with all cards, but if you've got a Canon, this baby works great.

======================================================

After reading the reviews, I decided to see if someone had tested a variety of cards. I found a good review at Digital Photography Review. They tested various high-capacity cards (512 mb range) in various cameras.

Yes, the Simpletech is one of the slowest cards in a Nikon 995. It came in at less than half the speed of a Lexar 16x. On the Canon EOS 1D and D30 as well as read/write tests on a firewire (IEEE 1394) card reader, the SimpleTech card beat the Lexar 16x every time.

It's not easy to pick the best CF card for your particular camera because there aren't good established benchmarking standards and what works great in one camera can be a dog in another. But from what I've seen in terms of people testing the SimpleTech, though it doesn't work well with Nikon, it works great with a lot of other cameras.

I've ordered one and I'll update this review when my Canon A40 and Simpletech 256 come in. For now I'll give it 4 stars so as not to distinctly affect the rating in one direction or another.

...and I'll take it! A 256 meg card in my Canon S100 set to its default resolution got a reading of 1578 shots available! That's an incredible amt of space and for someone heading off on an extended trip. I have been following CF costs on a dollar-per-meg basis for some time, and while the newest & largest cards have tended to carry a premium, this one does not. It is under fifty cents per meg, less than 1/4 of what it cost per meg only 18 months ago!

I've read many reviews about Compact Flash card speed and a couple of them here on Amazon. I read one review that listed some very high speeds for other brands, above 8000 kb/s. I don't know where that data came from, but in independant photo review sites, this SimpleTech card screams. No other brand was faster. By the way, no brand has ever tested in Camera's that even came close to 8000 kb/s or above.
Most CF cards test in at around 2000 Kb/s, some well known brands(SanDisk and Lexar) are at 800kb/s not 8000!!!! If you really want the truth, no card does well in Nikon's. They read at one bit, other cameras,Canon, Minolta etc read with 4 bits, are more advanced and produce superior results with both read and write speeds. The more advanced Camera's do make a difference. Check out independant reviews first, before you buy a camera or a card for your camera.

I purchased the RipFlash MP3 play to work out to and not for the digital voice recording features. This is my first MP3 player so I have no point of reference compared to other MP3 players. Given that, here are my experiences so far.

Pros:

- very good sound - especially with the equalizer
- fast transfer rate from my PC - 30 songs in less than 5 min
- very lightweight

Cons:

- no software for ripping CDs. I had to buy some but found a good one called MP3 Workshop...

- can only read MP3 format. Would have been nice if it could read WMA format. Then I could have used the Windows Media Player to rip the CDs.
- earplug earphone sounds good but had trouble keeping them in my ears.

Things you should know:

- If you do want to add a SmartMedia card, the songs on the card will be played separately from the ones in the built-in Flash memory. (this may be important if you want to play randomly)
- The display is small and somewhat hard to read, but did not bother me.
- I haven't tried to Rip CDs with the line-in but I think it is a useful feature.
- Would have been nice to have a belt clip for working out.

Overall, very good player. As I said, I like it very much, but it does have a few minor flaws. I can live with them for working out and would buy it again.

I bought this mostly to record lectures digitaly for pesonal use and public distribution. The sound quality is excellent, even recording at 32 kbs in a conference room, it sounds like a sound studio. At this recording rate an hour takes about 14M, or 50 hours worth on a 700M CD.The size is great, the fact that it records directly to mp3 format is very convenient, and it is easy to convert old tapes to mp3. It also runs fine on rechargeable batteries. I would give it five stars if it included two things, a bookmark feature (if you leave off in the middle of a one hour lecture you have to remember where you left off and then fast foreward to get back) and if it included some kind of mp3 editing software. But if you are in the business of distributing lectures this is an excellent product.

After having done a month search, i think it will be fair to add one more star to it!

Original I wanted to buy a good music player for my husband, in addition to it, I could record lecture three times a week. RipFlash's metal look makes it a winner. The review mentions about the wrist band, but mine did not come with one. I had Archos Jukebox Recorder 10 and RipFlash 128mb Digital Recorder.

Software Problems:

RipFlash's software is very basic. Installation was easy. I could drag songs directly from the MP3 manager software when it was first installed. But on the next day, this function was not working. Furthermore, when I disconnected the USB from the computer, the devise still has the 'pc usb' signal on. Meaning? i have no way to play it until and unless i take out the battaries and reinsert it. It happens very often.

Neither Archos Jukebox Recorder nor Ripflash software is a good file organizer. The Archos Jukebox has one more problem than the Ripflash. When i closed the MusicBox software and disconnected the protable device, an error message saying improper disconnection will cause pc hardware problems..... I guess no one would expect to see such a message after having done everything in great care. In fact, it crashed my computer more than twice. I had to reboot my computer. I gave up, and returned it

As the RipFlash player does not display title, i have to guess what is coming next. I bought a SM card for extra memory, the eject 'button' is difficult to use. It seems i have to push the card out myself.

Voice recording

I have to admit that the voice recording function is very easy to use and very sensitive, compare to my Archos Jukebox Recorder. Unlike the Archos Jukebox, the Ripflash allocates a new file for voice recording automatically. The Archos one asks for a new name everytime. Otherwise it will either replace your existing 'new song' file or refuse to record. I missed almost 10 minutes lecture because of setting up the Archos. And the battaries ran out within an hour. I was caught in the middle for recording exam tips! Definetly I will not recommend the Archos Jukebox Recorder for reporters or students alike. As a matter of fact, the RipFlash recorder is a very eligant and handy devise for recorders or students.

Final conclusion: there is no prefect mp3 player!
With almost 90 bucks more, why should i buy Archose Jukebox Recorder10 instead of Archose Jukebox 10 or other Jukebox? I am still considing whether to keep RipFlash because of the unreliable software.

A month later, i had returned the ripflash and the Archose. I did a lot of research, it seems no mp3 can fit in my need. Hey i have to trade off. Pal, if you are looking for something to convert your old plastic disks into good digital songs, the Ripflash series seem to be the solution. PoGo has some improved products. check out its website.

I purchased the RipFlash MP3 play to work out to and not for the digital voice recording features. This is my first MP3 player so I have no point of reference compared to other MP3 players. Given that, here are my experiences so far.

Pros:

- very good sound - especially with the equalizer
- fast transfer rate from my PC - 30 songs in less than 5 min
- very lightweight

Cons:

- no software for ripping CDs. I had to buy some but found a good one called MP3 Workshop...

- can only read MP3 format. Would have been nice if it could read WMA format. Then I could have used the Windows Media Player to rip the CDs.
- earplug earphone sounds good but had trouble keeping them in my ears.

Things you should know:

- If you do want to add a SmartMedia card, the songs on the card will be played separately from the ones in the built-in Flash memory. (this may be important if you want to play randomly)
- The display is small and somewhat hard to read, but did not bother me.
- I haven't tried to Rip CDs with the line-in but I think it is a useful feature.
- Would have been nice to have a belt clip for working out.

Overall, very good player. As I said, I like it very much, but it does have a few minor flaws. I can live with them for working out and would buy it again.

I bought this mostly to record lectures digitaly for pesonal use and public distribution. The sound quality is excellent, even recording at 32 kbs in a conference room, it sounds like a sound studio. At this recording rate an hour takes about 14M, or 50 hours worth on a 700M CD.The size is great, the fact that it records directly to mp3 format is very convenient, and it is easy to convert old tapes to mp3. It also runs fine on rechargeable batteries. I would give it five stars if it included two things, a bookmark feature (if you leave off in the middle of a one hour lecture you have to remember where you left off and then fast foreward to get back) and if it included some kind of mp3 editing software. But if you are in the business of distributing lectures this is an excellent product.

After having done a month search, i think it will be fair to add one more star to it!

Original I wanted to buy a good music player for my husband, in addition to it, I could record lecture three times a week. RipFlash's metal look makes it a winner. The review mentions about the wrist band, but mine did not come with one. I had Archos Jukebox Recorder 10 and RipFlash 128mb Digital Recorder.

Software Problems:

RipFlash's software is very basic. Installation was easy. I could drag songs directly from the MP3 manager software when it was first installed. But on the next day, this function was not working. Furthermore, when I disconnected the USB from the computer, the devise still has the 'pc usb' signal on. Meaning? i have no way to play it until and unless i take out the battaries and reinsert it. It happens very often.

Neither Archos Jukebox Recorder nor Ripflash software is a good file organizer. The Archos Jukebox has one more problem than the Ripflash. When i closed the MusicBox software and disconnected the protable device, an error message saying improper disconnection will cause pc hardware problems..... I guess no one would expect to see such a message after having done everything in great care. In fact, it crashed my computer more than twice. I had to reboot my computer. I gave up, and returned it

As the RipFlash player does not display title, i have to guess what is coming next. I bought a SM card for extra memory, the eject 'button' is difficult to use. It seems i have to push the card out myself.

Voice recording

I have to admit that the voice recording function is very easy to use and very sensitive, compare to my Archos Jukebox Recorder. Unlike the Archos Jukebox, the Ripflash allocates a new file for voice recording automatically. The Archos one asks for a new name everytime. Otherwise it will either replace your existing 'new song' file or refuse to record. I missed almost 10 minutes lecture because of setting up the Archos. And the battaries ran out within an hour. I was caught in the middle for recording exam tips! Definetly I will not recommend the Archos Jukebox Recorder for reporters or students alike. As a matter of fact, the RipFlash recorder is a very eligant and handy devise for recorders or students.

Final conclusion: there is no prefect mp3 player!
With almost 90 bucks more, why should i buy Archose Jukebox Recorder10 instead of Archose Jukebox 10 or other Jukebox? I am still considing whether to keep RipFlash because of the unreliable software.

A month later, i had returned the ripflash and the Archose. I did a lot of research, it seems no mp3 can fit in my need. Hey i have to trade off. Pal, if you are looking for something to convert your old plastic disks into good digital songs, the Ripflash series seem to be the solution. PoGo has some improved products. check out its website.

I love this camera! It is so easy to use. I was using mine within 20 minutes. Other cameras have more bells and whistles but if you are a beginner and dont want to spend the same type of $$ you can on a camcorder this is what I would recommend. The battery life is great as long as you don't use the LCD display to take pictures. One thing..using the serial port for downloading photos from the camera to your PC is too sloooooow. I recomend buying a flash reader for the flash card at any local electronics store. The reader is USB and it takes about 5 seconds to swap the card from your camera to the reader. It cost around $30.00. It's made by the same manufacturer who makes the card. Once the card is in it acts as a drive and it takes a second or two to bring up the pic compared to 10 to 15 minutes to do it before. The best thing about this is that you waste no battery life! The reader doesn't require batteries or an ac adapter! A much better deal than buying an AC adapter for the camera to download photos.

As an entry level digital camera, this is a great value. For $299 I wasn't expecting miracles, but I've been very impressed so far with this camera. Photo quality indoors, even at the lowest resolution, is amazingly good for Web work. Outdoors photos can sometimes get a little washed out, typically in very high contrast situations.

Other reviewers have mentioned their frustration with very short battery life. I too experienced this for the first few days. Expecting the 500 photos per set of 4 AA batteries the manual told of, I was very disappointed when I got maybe 30-35 shots before having to put in fresh batteries! I later learned that two things contributed to the short battery life. (1) Constant use of the flash. This situation can be fixed by turning off the auto flash when not needed, especially in most outdoor situations. (2) Constant use of the LCD screen. I thought it was cool at first, that you didn't even have to use the viewfinder--just frame your shots on the LCD! Come to find out, doing this sucks the life out of the batteries super fast. So use the traditional viewfinder to take pictures; if you're not sure how the picture came out and want to review it, use the LCD screen.

Lately, following the two rules above, I've been getting 200-300 pictures per set of batteries--including about 30-50 with the flash on. This is perfectly acceptable.

HP's $50 AC adapter should be priced at about $9.99. Instead, buy yourself a good quality set of rechargeable batteries and a charger (you can find them for about $30). This is a much more flexible solution that an AC adapter, especially if you get the 12 volt adapter for the charger so you can charge your batteries while on the road!

I am very happy with my camera but I am having a problem with the computer reading the camera for photo imaging. I have the imaging software on my home and work computer but they both say that it cannnot read the camera. I have check everything but it still will not work. Can you help with my problem? Thank you.