Kodak EasyShare-One for $185 shipped?
By
Mike Tomkins
(Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 14:08 EDT)
Announced as the flagship model of Kodak's EasyShare camera lineup in January 2005, the EasyShare-One eventually reached retail stores in October of the same year - making the model essentially only eight months old at the time of this writing. It first shipped at a price of US$599.
The EasyShare-One is a 4.0 effective megapixel camera with a Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon 36 - 108mm equivalent 3x optical zoom lens, and features a swivelling panel that dominates the camera's rear, filled with a large 3" LCD display. The display itself also features a touch screen (operated with an included stylus), and the panel it is mounted on can be swivelled to face inside the camera when closed for extra protection of the LCD.
Impressively, the EasyShare-One includes the ability to transfer images to Kodak's EasyShare Gallery from public wireless LANs via an SDIO WiFi card that, according to Kodak's website, is included in the bundle for products with this SKU number. The camera also features a VGA 30 frames-per-second video mode, as well as Kodak's Favorites feature which allows downsized versions of up to 1,500 favorite images to be stored in the camera's internal memory to show friends and family at a later date.
It also features two Secure Digital card slots, one of which is occupied by the 802.11b Wireless LAN card - the other being available to store images. The camera also offers 256MB internal memory, in which the Favorites images are stored at a resolution suitable for 4" x 6" printing, with unlimited albums (synched with your PC) and the ability to browse favorites by date. Finally, customers purchasing the camera are also entitled to "premium" post-sales service, including assistance with wireless setup and operation, and priority handling of inquiries.
With the recent announcement of the EasyShare-One / 6MP model, the original EasyShare-One's price was dropped to $199 list. You'll find that price drop reflected at a range of stores including Adorama, Buy.com, Best Buy, J&R.
TechBargains.com is currently listing a $15 off $200 Buy.com coupon that will take the price down to just a snip under $185, a truly stunning 69% discount on the initial pricing just eight months ago - and that's including free shipping. The coupon requires that you be a new customer, and that the item be labelled as "Pre-order" or "In Stock: Usually Ships in 1 to 2 business days" - the latter being true currently.
For a camera with the EasyShare-One's unusual feature set, this is definitely a rather special deal!
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