At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced seven new Photosmart digital cameras scheduled to hit the market between February and May 2006. Prices range from $119 to $399 for the 5- to 8-megapixel cameras, and all of them are Mac-compatible.
The entry-level E327 is a 5MP camera with a 1.8-inch LCD, no optical zoom (but 4x digital zoom), and 16MB of internal storage with an SD slot for adding more. HP showed three cameras in its M series, the M425 (5MP, 1.7-inch LCD), M525 (6MP, 1.7-inch LCD), and M527 (6MP, 2-inch LCD). All have 16MB of built-in memory, an SD slot for additional storage, 3x optical zooms, a button for quick Snapfish ordering, and include in-camera red eye removal and several HP Design Gallery effects and borders.
At the top of the line are the new R series cameras. The R725 (6.2MP, 2-inch LCD), R727 (6.2MP, 2.5-inch LCD), and R927 (8.2MP, 3-inch LCD) — the huge LCD on the R927 was one of the biggest I’ve seen on a digital camera.
These cameras include automatic in-camera red eye removal, in-camera panorama stitching, all of the 12 effects (tints, kaleidoscope, slimming, and more) and 10 borders (burnt, soft, and torn edges, for example) of the HP Design Gallery, a button to easily order and share pictures on Snapfish, and the ability to shoot VGA video at 24 frames per second. They also include a standard docking station, but an optional Premium Camera Dock lets you view photos on a TV, transfer images to a computer, print, and recharge both the internal camera battery and a spare battery. A separate Wirless Dock Base lets you share photos using a wireless network.