In addition to its new printers, HP on Friday also tipped its hand ahead of PMA 2005 by announcing five new cameras that will be unveiled at the show, including a BMW William F1 Team Special Edition model that sounds like a racing car engine when turned on. The Photosmart R717 features stainless steel construction while the Photosmart M417 offers an ergonomic grip. The Photosmart M22 and M23 cameras feature weather-resistant metal cases. HP did not announce pricing, save a US$149 to $349 range. All of the cameras require Mac OS X v10.1.5.
The BMW Williams F1 Team Special Edition camera comes in a silver tin embossed with the HP and BMW logos. A stylized version of the Photosmart R607 camera, the BMW Special Edition features 4.1-megapixel resolution, 3x optical and 7x digital zoom, eight shooting modes, Adaptive Lighting technology for automatically brightening dark spots and MPEG video clip mode. It supports PictBridge technology for direct printing to compatible printers, and it comes with 32MB internal memory, with additional storage provided through Secure Digital (SD) or MultiMedia Card (MMC). HP does not have a product page available on its Web site yet.
The Photosmart R717, which isn’t on HP’s Web site yet either, is a 6.2-megapixel camera with 3x optical and 8x digital zoom, Adaptive Lighting and red eye removal technology, 12 shooting modes, the ability to capture MPEG video at 320 x 240 resolution and Burst mode for taking three shots per second. Like the BMW Special Edition, it comes with 32MB internal memory and PictBridge technology and accepts SD and MMC storage cards. HP did not note a ship date.
The Photosmart M417, which will be available April 30, features five-megapixel resolution, 3x optical and 7x digital zoom, a 1.8-inch LCD, Adaptive Lighting and red eye removal, PictBridge technology, 16MB internal memory and SD/MMC storage card compatibility. The Photosmart M22 and M23, which will also ship on the same day, differ by offering four-megapixel resolution, 1.5-inch displays, digital-only zoom (6x in the M22, 7x in the M23) and the aforementioned weather-resistant cases.