Labs

Using a digital camera for the first time can be confusing when all you want to do is point-and-click. With HP's R817, instead of ditching useful features, help files and tips have been built into the camera to make sure you can use the advanced functions when you want to.

As well as an impressive 5x optical zoom and a generous helping of 32MB internal memory, the R817 offers a good selection of preset modes. These include the usual night and portrait modes, plus presets for photographing documents, and a panoramic mode.

Impressively, the R817

More importantly, the R817 also provides proper creative controls, such as shutter and aperture priority modes. There's even a fully manual mode available for the experienced users, though there's no way of overriding the camera's autofocus. We also liked the way the Photosmart indicates exactly what its autofocus is doing by superimposing brackets over the areas in the frame it is focusing on.

Though compression artifacts aren't anywhere near as obvious as they are with the Samsung, there's still some evidence of loss of detail in large areas of near uniform colours. For instance, patches of grass where colours look blurred. Pictures look grainy on closer inspection and this gets worse in poor lighting. And again, objects photographed against bright backgrounds took on slightly coloured edges.

Otherwise it's a well-designed camera. The help files are great for beginners, there's a good long zoom and the brushed and polished aluminum finish really sets it apart from the crowd.