HP Photosmart 720

HP's gray-and-silver Photosmart 720 is built like a brick, with a large lens and a rubber hand grip to the right. Some users may prefer the blocky style and heavy feel-the camera weighs just over 12 ounces-but it's overkill in a point-and-shoot model. It ships with 16MB of internal memory in lieu of a removable memory card, but it also includes a slot for the tiny SD memory cards.

The 3.18-megapixel camera has a mixed bag of features. It gives some control over exposure, letting you set the white balance and exposure compensation, and it includes a multiburst mode; but it omits core features like scene and macro modes. Some of the menu selections are oddly placed: Exposure settings are under the set-up menu in playback, instead of under the shooting mode, for example. On the other hand, three buttons on top of the camera offer instant access to the flash, the self-timer, the continuous shooting mode, and the image-quality settings.

In overall image quality, the Photosmart 720 ranked near the top of our point-and-shoot group. Though the 3X optical zoom felt slow and jerky, the camera produced crisp, well-exposed images that were pleasing both on-screen and as printed photos. The close-up of our still life looked sharp, and outdoors the camera delivered accurate colors and highlights, with adequate detail in the shadows. Only the shots of our mannequin, taken without the flash, came out overexposed, with a slight yellow cast.

UPSHOT: The HP Photosmart 720 takes sharp, well-exposed pictures-both on-screen and in print-but for a point-and-shoot, the camera feels a bit too large and heavy.

SUMMARY

HP Photosmart 720 $