As a general rule of thumb, you can expect to pay roughly £100 for every megapixel of resolution that a digital camera offers. At £399 then, the 5megapixel HP Photosmart appears to offer very good value for money.

The camera is rather a chunky unit, with a mode dial mounted on the top surface that lets you switch between auto, portrait, landscape and action modes, while a fifth AV mode offers a choice of two shutter speeds.

At the back of the unit the 1.5in LCD screen gives a clear live view of your subject, but doesn't cope too well with movement.

An OK button at the centre of a set of four navigational cursor buttons to the right of this calls up the on-screen menu (OSM), which features a basic help menu.

There are only two image size options on offer - 2,608 x 1,952 pixels or 1,296 x 976 pixels - but you can select compression, saturation, sharpness and contrast levels here.

For the more experienced photographer there are also white balance, AE metering and ISO speed setting sub-menus.

A rocker button lets you control the 3x optical/7x digital zoom, and the inclusion of a sliding scale on the LCD screen that shows you when you are about to switch to digital zoom is handy.

The image-cropping frame shows you exactly what part of the image is being magnified when you are using the digital zoom function.

Image quality was fair but some images showed evidence of severe chromatic aberration between areas of shade and light. Colours were generally well-rendered but the 935 had trouble with fine lines placed close together.

Detail capture in macro mode was good, with a range of 14cm or greater from the subject.

For an extra £50, a docking station is bundled that comes with a remote control - useful if you're presenting a slideshow on your TV.

Contact: HP 08705 474 747
www.hp.co.uk

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