HP Photosmart R707 review

A table of the digital images taken with the pocket digital cameras

HP's R707 is the latest Photosmart and boasts some nifty features thanks to the firm's research over the past few years.

One is adaptive lighting technology. When enabled, it brightens your subject if the backlighting is harsh, so you don't end up with either an overexposed background or a black silhouette of your subject. The second is red-eye removal. The camera can search for any red eyes in photos and remove them in seconds.

For novices, there's 'image advice' for any dodgy photos, offering tips on how to avoid blurring or underexposure next time. Helpfully, the display shows 'focus too close' if it can't focus at the given distance and can also flash the macro symbol if you're not already in macro mode. For night shooting, the focus assist lamp comes in handy.

The camera itself is certainly one of HP's smallest yet. It will fit in your pocket, but at 207g and 35mm thick, you'll feel it. Somewhat making up for these figures are a 5.1-megapixel sensor and 3x optical zoom lens, made by Konica Minolta - stunning, considering the fact that the R707 costs just £2 more than the Canon IXUS i.

It's solidly built too, with a brushed-metal front and tough satin-finish plastic at the back. Controls are sensibly laid out and we particularly liked the separate shutter buttons for stills and movies: the most intuitive design we've seen.

Movies can be shot at 320 x 240 but at an ultra-smooth 30fps. With ten preset shooting modes including an excellent panorama assist (which locks the exposure) and aperture priority mode, the R707 is packed with features.

Fortunately, quality is good. Adaptive lighting allowed us to take reasonable shots in tricky conditions, although this did introduce noise into images. In bright outdoor light, shots were well exposed, if a little soft. In-camera sharpness, saturation and contrast controls are there for tweaking images before they reach your PC. Resolution wasn't quite up to our expectations, given the 5.1-megapixel sensor, but considering the price, this isn't a major issue.

Despite an SD card slot, the R707 has 27MB of internal memory for ten maximum quality shots. HP includes an AC adaptor to charge the long-lasting Li-ion battery and a USB 2 interface for quick image transfers.

The R707 is easily HP's best camera to date, but speed is still a concern. Compared with the Casio, the R707 feels sluggish between shots (around five seconds) and it's slow to zoom in on stored images. Once this - and the size - is conquered, HP will challenge for awards.