Bottom line - DO NOT TOUCH THIS CAMERA! In fact, I would not recommend you buy a Kodak until they improve their customer service and post sales record.

THE PROBLEM: I have not been able to get more than 6 - 10 pictures out of a fully charged and or brand new battery. The charger shows that the battery is fully charged, but once it is in the camera, after a few pictures, the battery power drops to 1/2 then to empty. Ive bought 2 extra batteries, thinking maybe my first one was defective, but I continue to have the same problem.

Also, when the battery power drops the focus and lighting are affected and the result is blurry dark or overly bright shots until he power runs out.

RECCOMENDATION: I would NOT reccommend this camera. If you can only take 6 - 10 shots and 1/2 of them come out blurry, what is the point?

The zoom function is disappointing. It works fairly well for zooming in on up close portrait type shots or focusing in on some group shots. I prefer a lot more zooming ability. Some pics, on occation, turn out blurry for no apparent reason. And to determine if the pic is blurry before you download or print it you have to take the time to change the function on the camera and use the zoom function on the LCD--possibly blowing good photo opportunities.

I can turn out pretty good prints on my home printer (Dell). The picture quality is good even on larger pictures. It works really well for emailing pictures as well. The dock is very convenient. The photo editing software is OK, but could be better. One of the options on the editing software is the "Auto Enhance" which almost always seems to lighten the pics up too much and makes the complection of the subject very washed out. The "Exposure" function in the software works better if a pic needs overall adjustment usually.

Overall this is a good beginners digital camera, but after one year of having the camera I am now longing for a Minolta Dimage. (Wow! What a Zoom!)

The camera was very easy to use. Just pop it out of the box and pop in the battery and storage card and start shooting.

I pulled my first pictures up on my PC and the TV and they look great.

One thing that Kodak didnt tout that one of my co-workers thought was kind of cool is the different battery types it can use. Mine came with a Lithium battery that Ive seen for 5 bucks and is supposed to last over 300 pictures. My co-worker was concerned about having to buy more batteries but looking in the manual it supports many different kinds, including rechargeables.

I like the camera since Im not a photo pro. I have to say the cameras auto selection for flash etc. resulted in some good pics.

The only thing I had a problem with is that the LCD screen turns off fairly quickly.

I can highly recommend this camera.

It might not be a bad idea to consider other brands, instead of Kodak. Since, if the software wont work properly, then what good is the camera?

and i bought the fujifilm f-401 instead
now this is a great camera 3x zoom , movie mode some stainless components giving the immpression of a well made little camera
the pictures turned out great and best of all the dock was included. all for the same price as the kodak dx4900
do yourself a favour and check this camera out instead

FEATURES:

Digital Camera: At its highest resolution of 2272 X 1704 it can hold about 20 pictures or so. The easy to review LCD screen gives you instant feedback on your pictures and helps you decide on the spot whether or not they are worth keeping. You can add on another memory card to give you even more flexibility with the number of shots you can take. Plus, at a whopping 4.0 megapixels, this camera is at the high-end of printing and picture resolution in the digi-cam market. For quality pictures youll want to stick to cameras at 3.0 megapixels or up, definitely no less than 2.0 megapixels.

Easily Works With Your PC:

The DX4900 connects easily with your PC and comes with transfer software so you can easily download, edit and e-mail your pictures and videos, thus allowing you to share your pictures easier with family and friends.

NOTE:

One of the most frustrating aspects about digi-cams are the "short-lives" of the batteries that come with them. Batteries tend to die out quickly, especially if you use the LCD monitor on the camera (which is one of the best things about digi-cams). Based on other reviews it seems that a lot of users have complained about the "power issues" with the DX series of cams (and other digi-cams as well). Youll definitely want to invest in the Kodak EasyShare Camera Dock II which comes with rechargeable batteries and helps make the picture transfer process easier.

My investment in the camera dock has helped keep my cameras (I own two) in tip-top working condition. Trust me, if you plan to get good use of out your camera, invest in the camera dock and NI-MH rechargeable batteries. It will save you a lot of frustration when your camera does not die out on you at an inopportune moment.

THE VERDICT:

Overall, if you need a nice, easy to use camera to record your everday (and not so everyday) moments, the DX4900 is a great camera to start with. At 4.0 megapixels, the quality of your pictures will be the envy of your family and friends. For everyday/normal/touristy use, this is just perfect.

Highly Recommended

The upload time is FAST (less than a second per highest quality picture as compared to 4-5 seconds per picture on the HP 715), the pictures take awhile to store, but you can rack up a few in sequence and itll just store them as youre taking more. The viewfinder *is* fairly inaccurate, so if youre striving for a perfect shot, use the screen (especially in macro mode). That said, its great to save batteries with the view-finder. You just end up getting more in the picture that you bargained for, which can be cropped. With the HP715, I found Id always get slightly less than the viewfinder advertised (not good).

The 2X optical zoom / 3X digital mix would be better reversed :) but that would bump up the price of the camera. Im sure this is one way Kodal trimmed features. Still, I had NO optical zoon on my first digital, so this is about all Im used to.

Also, after using the HP715 for a couple of weeks, Ive learned to appreciate the speed of focusing, even in a slightly lower light. I could NOT get an infocus picture with the HP because the focusing mechanism just woudlnt catch. It had the curious habit of always focusing on the background, even if there was a large light-coloured object in the foreground that I was going for. Thats not how most autofocus sensors work and, happily, thats not how Kodak does theirs.

For a point-and-shoot, Id call this a pleasure to use. If youre looking for supreme control, its probably not the camera for you. I think the price is well-balanced with the feautres that are offered, though.

I took about 200 photos in my first week with this camera and I couldnt believe how great they looked on my screen... until I looked at them at their true size (100% image size). All of the pictures are grainy when you look at them at their full size. Look at them at 75% size and they look great. What I think this means is that the camera is really more like a 2-3 megapixil camera that makes images in the 4 megapixil size. If you are printing 4x6 images you wont have a problem with the cameras resolution, but dont believe what Kodak says on the box that you can have "Crisp, clear Prints at any size even up to 20x30 poster." It just isnt true. My 8x10 prints of DX4900 images on my photoprinter look pleasing but have very visible graininess that I never saw when I printed on the same printer using images from my old 3 megapixil sony camera. I called Kodak tech support and told them about this problem, they told me to return the camera because it must be defective. I took Kodaks advice but my new DX4900 has the same problem with its images. I hate knowing that I bought a camera that doesnt really live up to its marketing and my hopes.

One other love/hate thing about the camera: its images are often under 1MB in file size. They would be a good deal larger on most 4 megapixil digital cameras. This means you can get more images on a memory card... a good thing. Unfortunately, it means the DX4900 is compressing the images a lot and highly compressed images lose quality. There is no way to force the camera to decrease the compression of the images, only to increase the compression.

When considering the Kodak DX4900 you have to ask yourself the question "can I be happy sacrificing image quality for a lower price and ease of use?" It is a tough question to answer. Buying a cheaper 2-3 megapixil camera or a more expensive higher quality 4 megapixil camera may ultimately be more satisfying options.

First, the rechargeable battery, although brand new and charged properly, only seems to last about 15 minutes before it is dead.

Second, installation of the USB connected-docking station could be a bit more verbose, and there could be some diagnostic tools for debugging communication problems. As it stands, Kodak doesnt seem to have very good tools or help for determining why the docking station may not work. I did get mine to work, but it took nearly a day of fussing with it before it would (and a non computer savvy person might have given up). Now mind you, the reason for it not working was not the cameras or the docking stations *fault*, per se, but it was its *problem*, if you know what I mean...and Kodak could have provided some better help and diagnostics.

Admittedly, once it worked, it worked fast and flawlessly, transferring about 2 4Mpixel shots per second. So almost a perfect experience.

Here are my major complaints:

I use a compactflash reader that requires me to take out the flashcard repeatedly. The cover on the camera that goes over the card is very cheap and will most undoubtedly break with repeated opening.

Battery life is not very good. I bought rechargeable Kodak batteries and after charging them up to full, It only reads as half full on the camera and gives me very little life. I have better success with store bought alkaline batteries which are costly!

Another problem that I am still investigating is the pictures are coming out skewed. Hard to explain but if you take a picture of the door, the top lines up and the bottom does not. It is very subtle but still disturbing. This may be a problem with my camera only. Perhaps it is defective.

My complements are:

The camera has an extremely high pixel rate and the photos come out very detailed.

The camera was very affordable.

For our use the cons outweigh the pros. I suppose it all depends on what you value in a camera; cost vs. quality. If money isnt an issue, I would look further. If it is cost you value, this is definately your camera.

Software installation was a little tricky, but Im one of those people who doesnt like to read manuals.

But the coolest thing about this camera that many people dont mention is the video out jack. It comes with a cable that plugs into the camera, and the other end plugs into a TV or VCR. Then, you just turn the camera on, and the output from the LCD shows up on the TV - the camera will even do a slide show for you! Forget printing pictures, when I want to show people the shots I took, I just plug the camera into their TV, and everyone in the room can see!...

-In 80% of my photos, the highlights burn out, no matter which exposure, white balance, or quality setting I use. All of my photos seem very contrasted and there is no way to adjust this.
-The Digital Zoom is worthless - it just blows up the image by pixelating it, so you never get a sharp image.
-The veiwfinder does not match what the lense sees, so you have to remember to center the camera an inch or two above where you really want it.
-There is no way to manually focus the camera. It focuses on the closest thing to it. It would be nice to have a manual aperture setting, like the white balance and exposure settings.

The good things this camera has going for it are the EasyShare Photo Dock and the EasyShare Travel Kit (both purchased separately). It was very easy and fast to load the photos from the camera to my computer. The Travel Kit has a variety of interchangable power plugs and quickly charges the batteries.

I would not recommend this camera to anyone who is looking for manual/artistic control in a digital camera.

Problems:
1) 2X zoom is not sufficient
2) 3X digital zoom is unusable unless you mount on tripod or stationaly object. Whats the use of having a camera if you cannot use the zoom.
3) Rechargable batter would lose 1/2 its life after several days of non-use.
4) Cannot tell you how many times I tried to turn camera one and could not figure out why it was not operational.
5) Last straw was when I lost 70 pictures with 256MB Flash card at 2MP level. Things were great until I turned camera off. When I turned it back on, it said "need to format". I had used the flash card for hundreds of pictures.
I ended up taking camera back.

Battery life is good as long as yo9u dont use the tiny screen on the back. Never use the digital zoom. That goes for any digital camera.

This camera is fine for Ebay, but it will not replace the 35mm camera.

After looking around this one seemed like a sweet deal. 4MP and it got pretty decent reviews. However, there were a couple scathing reviews from people who had previous experience with digital cameras. I have to say, those people have it right. Most of the good reviews have to be coming from people who are just jumping into the digial world.

This Kodak camera is horrible. The pictures were a grainy mess and when compared with my Nikon 2MP pictures the overall colors and quality were less impressive.

Ive sent this camera back to Amazon, and am going to invest the money to get a camera with a higher quality lens.

I just started fiddling with digital cameras fairly recently (in the last 6 months) and after getting a ZR45MC camcorder/camera, I longed for a better camera that can do some excellent digital stills. After reviewing all the digital cameras available in the market that can do some excellent photos, PLUS is reasonably priced (this one is the cheapest 4-megapixel camera in the market), I ended up getting this camera, and Im sooo glad I got this! Even for someone who doesnt know much about photography (like me) this camera can take some excellent photos without much tweaking at all. Ive yet to learn the more advanced features it has like exposure settings, sharpness, ISO settings, shutter speed, closeups/distant focusing, and a number of others, but Im already taking some pretty good photographs even without all the tweaking. I can only imagine how much better my photos will look IF I master this camera!

Also, if you have a very good photo printer (I have an HP Photosmart 1315), you can just directly take out the compactflash card out of the Kodak DX4900 and insert it in the HP Photosmart printers card reader, and out comes an EXCELLENT, photolab-quality photo! A friend of mine wouldnt believe that I did all these myself and thought I had it professionally done at a photo store like Ritz Camera.

Overall, I would recommend this camera to anyone who wants some excellent photos but doesnt want to do any major tweaking just to get great-looking shots. I HIGHLY recommend this one!

Unhappy with the cheap plastic feel, even unhappier when the little plastic battery slide broke off so the camera cant stay powered. Kodak promised to fix it without any arguments, but it needs better workmanship, maybe metal parts instead of plastic?

Ill be treating it to a well padded camera case when I get it back!

Very easy to use, and yet plenty of settings to tweak if you are like me. I love the ISO setting and the exposure, just to mention two. My only complaint come for the 2X optical Zoom. If you are looking a camera for remote photography, maybe you should look for some Mavica models which delivers up to 20X.

The Kodak DX4900 speed is quite good (compared to an eternity in any Mavica), and the image quality, after some fine tuning, is great. The software included is a good start kit, but you may better consider some professional or semi-professional image editor instead.

And you absolutly will need more memory! 16MB is simply not enough. Consider at least an additional 64MB CF card.

I think this camera will be with me for a long long time!

I just returned from a three week European vacation and had such a blast taking pictures, deleting those I did not like, retaking the picture with different settings, etc. This camera has alot of flexibility but is so very easy to use. After spending 30 minutes reading the instruction book I was good-to-go. One of the things that amazed me with this camera is what good pictures it took in low light conditions. All I had to do was make an adjustment to the light conditions on the camera; I was able to take great pictures up on the bright snowy alps as well as pictures of a lit up castle on a hill at dusk.

I agree with a previous review on the Kodak editing software that came with my camera. I do not like it and have opted to use PhotoSuite software to fine tune my pictures. I upgrated the memory to 128MB and purchased 2 sets of rechargeable double AA batteries and a charger (for $20). With the docking station the rechargeabe batteries arent really even necessary but they came in handy during my vacation.

One last comment, I watched the sales ads. Best Buy had the camera on sale for $349.00 I took the ad to Circuit City and they matched the price-as well as threw in 2 packs of photo software.

The Easy Dock is great for loading pictures and E-mail to family
and friends. It is a great toy to experiment and have fun.

Patrick

The downside is that you dont get a camera bag, and the 16MB memory card is too small. I think the 64MB memory card is perfect for me, but then I have a laptop that I can take with me and dump the pictures onto when the card gets full. The camera also comes with a lithium battery, so you still need to buy either a charger or a cradle (both come with one rechargable battery pack). Buy an extra battery pack so you dont get caught without juice! The lithium battery packs last only about twice as long as a charged battery pack, but they cost more ..., so definitely go rechargable!

Even without accessories, however, this is a great camera, and you cant get this kind of resolution for this price anywhere else. Ive taken some absolutely breathtaking nature photographs after having the camera for only a few days. The automatic shutter speed is great for evening and low light situations, and I havent even tried some of the cooler features of the camera yet.

One more thing - think about investing in some photo-editing software. The camera takes great base pictures, but they still need to be brightness, contrast, and color adjusted. And cropped. And retouched. I like the ULead stuff myself, because it is [reasonably priced] and powerful. But there are a number of very good tools available for less than [money], and you can really spruce up your favorite photos pretty quickly and easily with the right software. In my opinion, it is the ability to edit the photos that MAKES digital photography so powerful, and the higher resolution you go in with, the better the end result. Although Kodak provides some image editing software with the camera, it was really pretty poor. I definitely recommend getting something better (though you may not need it at first depending on what you want to do, and your level of experience).

Great camera, great pictures, great price. Plan on spending at least another [money] on accessories (battery charger or cradle, memory card update, camera bag, optional add-on lenses), and maybe [money] on software if you dont already have a favorite image editing tool. Once you have it all in place though, you get to take as many high-resolution photos as you want to for almost free! And I am telling you, I was just blown away at how some of my photos came out. Breathtaking!

Kodak needs to improve the quality of their products and stop making such shabby cameras. Buy a Canon S200 or S330 or A40 and you will be much more happy. They have much more features and have very good metallic bodies. Dont buy this plastic junk. Look all the freebies that Kodak is throwing in to sell this :)

I know I will not be very pouplar in my harsh review about this cheapie but I prefer to be candid.

I have use this camera for almost 3 month. I have taken almost hundreds of pic. The color of this camera is so natural, and I think Kadak do its best to recover the original color in this category of camera. It is better than the film camera I have from Cannon. I will give my new film camera to my sister sinceI did not use it any longer

Do not beleive the negative comment from the view. Buy this one, you will like it. It is the best value I have ever seen. Even the software it provides is good.

Its a great camera - youll need a bigger card than what given with it though.

The docking station is ok, its easy, but if youre at all computer literate, its just a nice-to-have.

Kodak 4900 broke the megapixel/price barrier by bringing out a jaw-droppingly extraordinary 4 Megapixel camera at less than [amount]. Kodaks unequaled color capture capabilities in its digital cameras is evident in the 4900 as well as enough features to keep all but professional photographers happy for years.

With the 4900 it will be possible to crop pictures and still get beautiful 5x7 and 8x10s! Uncropped 16x20s and larger are possible from Ofoto (the best online print solution).

The only way to get a camera nearly as good as this is to spend 2-3 times as much money. Even at triple the money camera is as easy to use for great prints as the 4900.

Darn, this is a REALLY good buy for a REALLY great camera.