Hewlett Packard M627 Review

The Hewlett-Packard Photosmart M627 includes both a seven megapixel CCD imager and an HP-branded 3x optical zoom lens. An 8x digital zoom will help you crop in on subjects even more tightly, but like any digital zoom it cannot recreate detail that wasn't in the wide-angle image, and hence will tend to soften images proportionally to the zoom strength. For framing images, there's a 2.5" LCD display - slightly above average size these days. There's no optical viewfinder - something that's become an increasingly rare in modern digital cameras, unfortunately. Images are stored on Secure Digital / MultiMediaCards, or in 16MB of internal memory.

M627 shooting modes include Action, Auto (default), Beach and snow, Burst, Fast shot, Landscape, Macro, Night portrait, Portrait, Self timer and Sunset. Other Photosmart M627 features include in-camera red-eye removal and HP Design Gallery with slimming (artistic effects, borders, colors).

Images captured on the HP M627 are transferred to your computer over a USB 1.1 connection, rather slower than the USB 2.0 High Speed connections offered on many cameras these days. Power comes from two standard AA batteries - either alkaline or lithium disposables, or NiMH rechargeables. The product bundle includes HP Photosmart software, offering basic photo editing, printing and sharing functionality. The camera is PictBridge complaint - letting you print images directly on compatible printers without the need for a computer, and is available with an optional camera dock.

The Hewlett-Packard Photosmart M627 is priced at US$229.95 and ships from September 2006.