Total loss at 19 months because of mechanical failure

Customer Service

After a year and half, the telescoping lens on my V550 froze in the extended position, and the camera is totally inoperable. A repair shop told me a helicoil in the telescoping mechanism likely failed. Probably shorted out the power circuitry, too.

Kodak must cut every corner to manufacture a camera that dies of mechanical failure after 19 months. Early on, it had an intermittent problem of retracting the lens and shutting off when I pressed the telephoto button. Loaded new firmware after 10 months, no help.

Kodak's website, their telephone representative in India, and email center all had the same message: Kodak would repair the camera for $135. Firm even after I offered to pay half that. Forget it. For $130 I bought a new Canon A530. After two weeks, I find it to be a better camera. Maybe it will fail, too, but at least the price new was half what I paid for the Kodak.

-NO RED EYE in photos of blue-eyed children, even without setting flash to red-eye reduction!
-Big 2.5-inch LCD
-Great edge-to-edge sharpness
-Viewfinder for times when the sun washes out the LCD
-Fast shot-to-shot times
-TV-quality video mode
-Easier to hold than Canon's micro-sized SD cameras; grippy surface without plastic/rubber appliques
-Abundant shooting modes
-EV adjustment easy to use
-Low-light focus assist lamp.

-The self-timer mode is only activated by a menu selection, no on-body button. Also, it needs to be re-set after each photo.
-Optical viewfinder cuts of 15-20% of the total image
-Smallish 4-way controller takes some getting used to; now it's easy, but not at first.

Bought refurbished online. The camera has a big, terrific LCD and a tiny viewfinder -- I like having both options. Shot side-by-side with the Canon SD400 and the Kodak V550 had sharper edge-to-edge image quality, a bigger screen, better battery life, and cost less. Extra batteries are considerably cheaper than the Canon's, too.

This 5-megapixel camera is my replacement for the Olympus Stylus 35mm film camera that lived in my briefcase for years: great image quality, easy to use, and TV-quality 30-FPS video.

Customer Service

Not a problem.

Similar Products Used:

Canon SD400
Pentax Optio S40

Small, portable, and (fairly) durable. Huge LCD. Internal memory. Comes with decent docking solution. Decent image quality for a 5MP P&S. Nearly instant shutter-button response.

Huge LCD sucks batteries. Tiny buttons with little or no tactile feedback.

Awesome point-and-shoot. It's definitely capable of taking good photos, but it seems that this camera is destined to be a companion at social events rather than at the top of a tripod outdoors or in the studio.

The V550 is extremely portable, which means this is probably going to be used more often when photography *isn't* the purpose of an outing. It's small enough for a shirt pocket, but I wouldn't recommend putting it in a pants pocket. The camera is durable, but not enough to be sat on!

The LCD is *HUGE* for a camera of this size. Over half of the rear of the camera is LCD. This is both good and bad. Good because you can actually see what you're shooting at (basically, the optical viewfinder is like a pinhole). Bad because such a large LCD will drain a battery charge much faster than a smaller one would.

Which brings me to battery life - it's decent, but don't expect to go out and shoot all day on a single charge. You'll definitely need a portable charger or a second charged-up battery to swap in if you plan on taking lots of photos in a single outing. I've used the camera intermittently for about a week and it's needed charging at least twice since the first full charge.

I was pleasantly surprised at the image quality. I'm used to shooting with my Canon 20D (a digital SLR camera), so I'm also used to getting high quality images when I shoot. My expectations were much lower with a point-and-shoot, but I guess they didn't need to be.

As for operating the camera, everyone else that's reviewed this camera is correct - the buttons are *way* too small for full-sized adult fingers. While the size of the buttons make things difficult, it's not entirely impossible to get full use from the camera, either. I can deal with most of the difficulties of the small buttons (it is, after all, a rather small camera), but I just can't understand why some of the buttons have no tactile feedback whatsoever. The top-mounted buttons to select the shooting mode lie flat with the top edge of the camera and don't offer any sort of tactile feedback when pressed. If you're in the middle of composing a shot and press one of these buttons by accident, you'll be greeted by a change of display on the LCD and that's it. Until it's happened a few times, you'll likely be confused as to what happened. I guess the small buttons and controls just take some getting used to.

The V550 takes SD cards for media, but it does have some built-in memory if the card you're using runs out of space. These areas are kept separate from one another, and there's a menu option to select between the two. Write speed to the SD card seems to be pretty quick, so I don't know if buying 'premium' cards will be worthwhile. I only had a single 128MB SD card from a few years ago to try out (all my other camera gear uses CompactFlash). The 'regular' SD card appears to be just as fast as the internal memory. Since this camera doesn't come with any SD cards to use, I suggest buying for capacity rather than write speed since that's where you'll probably notice the most difference.

Zoom range is decent, but not exceptional, even for a point-and-shoot. However, auto-focus speed is F-A-S-T! It does get confused occasionally, but it's pretty easy to recompose and get that focus lock again without losing the shot.

The response from the shutter button is nearly instantaneous. At the very least, it doesn't appear to have any perceptible lag.

Some of the accessories that came in the box included a dock that both charges the camera as well as connects to the computer to offload the images. It's clear that some thought went into how the dock operates and is presented to the user. The camera slides into a shallow plastic tray that aligns the camera to the ports on the dock such that the LCD is facing the user and it's angled up at the user's face. This allows the camera's LCD to be used as a second display when the computer is powered up and as a sort of picture frame slide-show when the computer is off (using the images already stored in the camera). This eliminates the need to remove either the battery or the card from the camera. Now if I could just get my dSLR to do that...

Who should buy this camera? Well, it's a pretty wide group, to be honest. Most likely, it will be those that just need a compact camera that can go anywhere with them. It makes an excellent camera to take to parties since it's small, fairly fast, and fairly durable. It might also make a good companion to some dSLR shooters that want something light and easy for either comp photos or if the dSLR rig will take too long to prep before a magic moment is lost. For now, that's how I'm using it, anyway. Something tells me that my wife will eventually take it as her primary camera, though...

Customer Service

No experience with Kodak's customer service.

Similar Products Used:

None - first compact digital P&S.

The V550's big screen lets you compose pictures with ease, making the micro-sized optical viewfinder superfluous. Its focus-assist light works very well in low-light conditions. Images are sharp and contrasty. The video mode is surprisingly good. The camera, while all-metal and on the heavy side, still fits in your pocket easily. Oh, and the cool backlit blue buttons double as a recharge meter -- and a night light!

- Battery life is kinda short, mostly due to the big LCD. Now you know why it has a viewfinder. Need to buy a second battery. - Four-way controller and its center nub are very small and easy to push in an unintended direction. Gets to be frustrating. Kodak should put a small button-poker on the camera strap. - Bad placement of the flash-mode button, right next to the power switch. I turned the camera off several times while intending to just click off the flash. - Self-timer button is on a menu, rather than a separate external button. - Reviewing pictures on the LCD shows less detail than what's actually in the pictures. Prints look way better than what that LCD screen shows. - If you like pressing lots of buttons, baby, this is your camera.

Cool little camera that actually delivers better photos than shown on its big LCD screen. But the tiny buttons and 4-way controller are a pain for anyone with large (e.g., men's) fingers.

Customer Service

Not needed yet. Bought the extra battery right off.

Similar Products Used:

Pentax Optio S50 Kodak LS743

A great consumer camera and a fun camera for the pro when you just want a pocket size camera for a quick snapshot. Easy to use good image quality. PHD button