January 10th, 2008
The best Kodak (yeah, Kodak) camera at CES
None of the serious digital camera reviewers typically gives Kodak the time of day. Case in point, of the nine cameras Kodak announced at CES, CNET didn’t cover a single one in its extensive show coverage. And I dread to think what the first commenter from my previous post (the photographer who shuns Samsung) thinks of Kodak cameras. So perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but I think there is something to be said about the company’s “you press the button, we do the rest” mantra. I actually bought my dad the Kodak EasyShare v610 and my technophobe mom inherited an older EasyShare camera, and except for having to upload all their pictures for them to their Kodak Gallery, I’ve never gotten a “how do you do this” call from them on either camera (and if you ever watched them try to program a VCR, you’d know how completely amazing this is). So having said all that, I won’t take myself too seriously and will share with you my favorite of the nine.
Kodak EasyShare V1073
The V line is Kodak’s bells-and-whistles line and this 10-megapixel model has them in spades. Like the Samsung NV24HD, the V1073 delivers the ability to shoot 720p HD video at
30 frames per second. It can also output stills in both 720p and 1080i HD formats, connecting to your TV via a separately available EasyShare HDTV dock. The other big feature (pun intended) is a 3-inch LCD touchscreen designed to make camera setup and control even easier, giving you plenty of screen real estate to view, edit, and organize photos in-camera. With most controls accessed by the touchscreen, Kodak was able to keep buttons to a minimum, allowing them to design a pretty sleek package, even if it does look a little sardine-can retro (but I kinda like that). Face detection technology, optical image stabilization, and a smart capture mode–which analyzes your scene conditions to automatically set exposure, focus, and ISO–are all employed to help make it as hard as possible to take a bad picture. I just wish the Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon 37-111mm lens started out a bit wider. Note that there’s also a 12-megapixel V1273 with the same specs and design, but unless Kodak has significantly improved on its image quality, I think 10 megapixels is already more than enough. The V1073 will be available in March for a list price of $249.95.
Janice Chen has been covering technology for almost two decades. She got her hands on a Nikon Coolpix 900 back in 1998 and has been a digital camera enthusiast ever since. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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