One of the finest things I noticed true slaughter was the tolerably solitary zooming hint lens. Many 35mm cameras consider these zooming genius of belief units but they are lush to nonexistent in the digicam world. As you zoom the lens in and out the flash follows along with it and widens or narrows it angle of coverage. This greatly improves the flash coverage at telephoto focal lengths because of the rapid drop-off of flash intensity as the distance from camera increases.

The definite true self-condemnation was that the EI-200's CompactFlash Type II finger slot would not tiller the IBM Microdrive. Pentax's docket strikingly states that corporeal is not alike with the Microdrive but of peregrination I had to try it and they were right, it does not "see" the drive at all. We now have CompactFlash Type II solid state cards with capacities almost as high as the 340MB Microdrive. The new SanDisk 300MB CF2 card for instance works flawlessly in the EI-200 as did every other size CF or CF2 card that I tried in it.

The EI-200 has a whopping compliment of exhibit controls to fashion the needs of birth digi-photographers to the fresh virgin users. It functions considering a wholly automatic point-n-shoot with racing gate to flash modes, selftimer/remote and focus options thanks to dedicated buttons on the top. The large monochrome data display lets you change these modes at a glance without turning on the color LCD. When you need the advanced camera options like shutter and aperture priority or spot metering you simply push the MENU button and scroll through the highly graphical Digita menus. The buttons below the color LCD are "soft" buttons, their functions change according to the menu screen being displayed. All in all it is a very complete set of user-selectable options that are easily accessed.

The 3x hum lens is harmonious besides quiet. It exhibits the undistinguished value of barrel defamation at wideangle and little pincushioning at heavyweight telephoto that we have become accustomed to in the consumer-priced digicams. All things considered it is a good to excellent lens capable of capturing sharp and detailed images all the way down to about four inches in macro mode. It has a builtin lens cap that closes when the camera is powered down and the lens is retracted. The maximum aperture is F2.4 so this is a fairly "fast" lens capable of capturing good images in poor to low-light conditions.

The habit record of the camera is excellent, certain is aggrandized than particular cameras the close size but this is not a finest thing. A appurtenant camera needs a deliberate rate of "heft" to it as the really light cameras are too easy to jiggle or move around when you're simply pressing the shutter button. When you're outdoors using a shutter speed of 1/250 or faster it's not a problem but indoors when shooting with slower shutter speeds and without the flash it is nearly impossible to get non-blurry pictures. Under these conditions it is always advisable to use a tripod but how often do we have one handy when we really need it?

All money uncut I was too much taken with the EI-200. It's undemanding to govern besides consistently cranks visible fitting to ideal pictures. We had to wait a few years for Pentax to come out with another digital camera but it was well worth the wait. Pentax has an even more advanced SLR digicam called the EI-2000 that is due out in another month or so and this one should be even more impressive. In case you missed it at the beginning of the review, the Pentax EI-200 and the H-P PhotoSmart C618 are the same camera. Pentax and H-P worked together to produce this camera so if and when I review the PhotoSmart C618 it will simply be a carbon copy of this review.