HP PhotoSmart 318

1. PC and Mac compatibility makes this camera a snap to use
2. Point-and-shoot digital cameras address consumer demands for quality digital cameras that are easy to use

The Dummy Factor As we noted in our overview of HP's cameras back in Dec. 2000, the company prides itself in making digital photography more accessible with digital cameras that are easy to use. Therefore, we thought we'd put this premise to the test with this review. We didn't crack open the 80+ page manual until after we'd had a go at figuring out the camera's operation by intuiting what all those little icons mean.

After all, you don't want to cart around the manual, do you? The top of the unit includes three small buttons, a small LCD, a jog wheel, an on/off switch and an unlabeled but fairly obvious shutter button. The three small buttons are the least obvious. See if you can guess what they mean.

• Button 1 = two stars
• Button 2 = a box labeled 2x and a stopwatch icon.
• Button 3 = "lightning bolt" arrow.

These control, respectively, image quality, digital zoom/self timer and flash. On the back, there's an LCD display and a button with a monitor icon that -- you guessed it -- turns the display on or off. So, with the possible exception of the two stars, the controls proved to be fairly straightforward. In use, the camera is indeed easy.

After installing the four (supplied) Lithium AA cells, the camera runs through a setup procedure in which you set the language (English/Grench/German/Spanish/Italian/Japanese), date and time, you are ready to go. Focusing and flash is automatic. Well, supposedly. I found that the automatic flash feature didn't really work all that reliably when shooting in semi-dark areas (which most people probably won't be doing that often), such as a dim corner of our testing lab, the flash didn't fire reliably. I had no problems in average lighting.

There's also a red-eye reduction mode (invoked by pressing the lighning bolt icon) that improves most photos of people and pets. Like its predecessor, the HP PhotoSmart 315 Digital Camera, the 318 uses CompactFlash memory for storage. It has marginally higher resolution than the 315, and roughly similar specs in most other areas -- the most notable omission being the "JetSend" infrared photo transmission capability that, apparently, few people cared about.

There are a few peculiarities worth noting. Oddly, the 318's internal memory can't be accessed if a CompactFlash (CF) card is installed. If you want to access an image from internal memory, you have two choices: remove the (optional) CF card, or copy the contents of the camera's internal memory to CF. There is no TV/composite video out function, a feature found on many competing models.

Mac Support

We connected the camera up to a 400 MHz G3 PowerMac running OS X 10.1 and were delighted at the ease with which the photos were retrieved. As soon as the supplied USB cable is connected and the camera is powered on, Mac OS X automatically launches its integrated Image Capture application. With one click, you can download some or all of the photos to the computer. Each photo is saved as a JPEG and displayed with a preview icon. From there, you can automatically resize them or format them as a web page. If you prefer, you can make the Mac open a different program instead. Although Mac OS 9 and earlier releases lack this built-in functionality, the camera ships with ArcSoft Photo Impression image retrieval software with similar functionality.

Unfortunately, we encountered a snag during our test of this software. The usually trouble-free external Plextor 8x CD-ROM drive attached to our Mac could not read the CD supplied with the camera. Fortunately, the computer's internal drive read the disc under Mac OS 9.1, although, oddly, this same drive failed to read the disc under Mac OS X. Thus, we suspect other Mac users may encounter difficulties in reading the disc on some Macs.

Windows Support

We also tested the camera with a number of PCs running various versions of Windows. The supplied software supports Windows NT 4.0 (but requires an extra-cost  CompactFlash Card Reader and CF card - NT has no USB support!), Windows 98, 2000 and Me. The camera works particularly well with Windows XP, which supports the camera directly, via built-in "Wizard" software. Its functionality is not unlike that of Mac OS X, as described above.

When the camera is connected via USB, Windows XP automatically loads its built-in drivers (without even asking for a CD - nice!), then brings up a dialog asking you if you would like to use the system's Scanner and Camera Wizard to retrieve the images, or select a different image-capable application that may be on your system (e.g., Word, Imaging, Photoshop, etc.).

Then, you select which images you wish to retrieve (by default, all are selected) and the images are grabbed, then opened for zooming, rotating, etc. in the Windows XP preview application. The Wizard provides options to upload the files to a web site or order prints online. The package includes ACDsee, from Victoria, BC-based ACD Systems. The software, for Windows and Mac, is touted as the world's most popular digital imaging software for viewing, browsing, managing and sharing images.