Digital Journal — When you’re looking to buy a digital camera, it’s never a good sign when the salesman at Staples spends the better part of 20 minutes begging you to stay away from anything by Hewlett-Packard.
But Digital Journal‘s Lemon Awards are all about masochism in the name of consumer protection. So when we took the HP Photosmart M517 back to the lab, we decided to find out what would spook the Staples guy so much.
Our experiment didn’t last very long. For one thing, even fully charged, this camera goes through more juice than the starting lineup of the 1988 Oakland A’s — we shot 12 photos before it faded to black.
That’s not the worst part. Many digital cameras in this price range (under $300) will have some shutter lag; shooting with the M517 is akin to using a self-timer. Add its tiny optical viewfinder, and the constant messages that the flash is loading and those shots of your son’s first steps won’t show up on the (substandard) display until he’s ready for college.
Also, the ergonomics are terrible. For some reason, HP went against a century of intuitive design by making the video button easier to reach than the shutter release. Good call.
You’d think, given all this hassle, it would at least take some great pictures. Hell no. The shots look noticeably noisy and suspiciously low-res for a 5-megapixel camera.
At $249, at least it won’t break the bank — although, if you were to take our salesman’s advice to heart, you’d definitely want to buy a greatly extended warranty.
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