So I will start off by saying that cost was of major concern when I was shopping for my camera, and the price, honestly, is pretty good. But I'm here to tell you what you are and aren't getting for that money.Value-
I admit, I was purely going by review ratings (kind of), capabilities, name brand and price when I was shopping. But the price was pretty good for what it is, and the video features of this camera were better than others that were in the price range. The positives are the included USB cable but on the other hand, since it takes AAs, no rechargable batteries were included, instead just two alkalines were packed. You'll have to get your own memory card too, but in this day and age, they're realtively cheap anyways.
Appearance-
The slick black design is really nice and the contrasting chrome lens framing is good balance. It is by far more attractive than my old Nikon 5200. The big screen is also really nice, and the buttons are simple, minimalistic and quite just how I like them.
Construction and Quality-
The camera is solid and balanced and the buttons have a nice feel to them. However, while excused by the low price, I have my doubts about the plastic housing and its durability. Will the glossy black shell lose its luster and color?
Also of concern is the trap door for the batteries and memory card. My old Nikon had a nice sturdy metallic housing, but its ultimate failing was the battery trap door that didn't sit flush after one of the tabs broke. The same design was used for this new Optio, and it worries me a bit more, since the Nikon had a latch holding back the battery while the trap door on this Optio has to do the work of holding back the two AA batteries.
Made in China. This was a negative for me, but discussing my reasons would be off topic. Decide for yourself. If I would have known and was made aware of competing products that weren't made in China, I would have probably gone with something else.
Practicality-
It fits in my pockets just fine, no protruding parts, so it slides in and out of jean pockets just fine. The use of AAs is a great concept, since you don't have to buy model specific batteries, instead just alkalines or AA rechargables. Great for a couple years down the line, if you want to keep the camera and the rechargables are shot. Cheaper and easier to find!
The filing system is quite handy, and instead of just one folder of all the pictures you've ever taken, it creates a new folder for every day and sorts the pictures by date. In playback mode, simply press the zoomout button 3 times, and it will show you a calendar with all the days that you took pictures. You can also disable this feature if you want to.
There is also an easy mode that turns off all the advanced information and just tells you the amount of pictures you still have room for, and the battery life, with larger text. This is useful if you don't want all the complexities or have a hard time seeing all the small text.
Performance-
The camera would be just fine for someone who wants a camera that will take decent looking pictures, nothing more. The focus, the colors, and the sharpness are all fine most of the time. But if you want manual settings, like to get close ups or have other performance requirements, that is where the camera falls short. I'm not talking about megapixels, so if thats the only thing you understand or want to hear about, skip this section.
Autofocus: The focus works great on subjects that are far away to an armslength away. But if you enjoy getting close to flowers or small, detailed things, you'll find yourself having to tell the camera to refocus a few times before you get a sharp image. My old Nikon was better in that respect, and I got really nice images of coins, flowers, and patterns, something that I'`m having more trouble doing. I find myself having to keep the camera a bit further away from the subject, even with macro. But of course, with twice the resolution, I can crop off the extra background and still have a high definition image.
Autofocus (cont.): In my old Nikon, you had the capability of defining which area of the picture you wanted autofocus to focus on, something lacking here. I miss that feature alot, but its not a complete deal breaker.
White balance: The WB is not user definable or atleast I haven't figured out how to force a WB setting. The auto WB works most of the time, but there have been times where the WB was completely off and it was refusing to make white look white. Unacceptable if you want that control over the consistency of color in camera.
Video: The video works fine, but the audio quality is not quite what I'd like it to be. But then again, I do alot of video work and probably have higher expectations than most and I usually just use this camera for still images and not so much video. But the quality is acceptable and presentable. No real zoom during recording.
Summary and concluding remarks-
This camera looks good, is built well and all at a great price point. The camera lacks a metal casing, but otherwise feels fine, but the battery trapdoor is of some concern. For normal, pedestrian uses, the picture quality is fine, but the camera lacks user-definable settings for more sophisticated and/or demanding users. The video quality is ok and will do just fine for a family video or your vlogs. It takes widely availabe and cheap AA batteries and SD memory cards, so no worries there.
Is this camera full of features and advanced capabilities? No.
Does it take good pictures/videos? Yes.
Are there better cameras? Yes.
Its it worth the price? At the Amazon discounted price w/ free shipping, yes.
The taken pictures are almost too good for me; that's perfect although I haven't taken any picture outside at night. Full HD pics are pretty much better than the qualities of pictures that I took with my previous camera, Pentax Optio S30, which offers 3.2Megapixels.
For movie-taking, I think it's perfect for those amateurs who don't know much about how-to-take perfect movies; it just perfectly functions to take movies for life-logs. Although the resolution is 740p, Half HD, I don't expect that my movies are perfectly acceptable to watch with a full screen on 54 inch TV or something. (I just want to keep those movies for my memories; then, 740p is almost too good for movie-taking.)
It's also lightweight, much lighter than my previous camera, Optio S30. So, I always take it with Eneloop, rechargeable batteries from SANYO. I can totally recommend this camera for those who are looking for the one with a affordable price tag to take photos and movies for memories and personal blogs.We have owned (and still own) two other Pentax compact cameras: an Optio 60 and an Optio P60. We have fallen in love with the simplicity of the menus, the quality of the photos, and the incredible battery life of the E80. This camera is so intelligent and quick that it is simply amazing. Even low light pictures, macros, and photos of fast objects come out looking spectacular. This camera offers performance which you would have paid $300+ for only a year or two ago. The small size means it fits in shirt pockets or pants pockets easily. We don't even keep track of battery life because basic rechargeable AA batteries last a very long time in this camera. We are so thrilled with the Optio E80 and we can see this coming along on every vacation, to every party, and to every special event where a bulky camera is not needed.I thought this would be a great camera I could carry around easily and catch those moments "I wish I had my camera" for but on my 3rd use and trip to the aquarium my camera would not work I got new batteries I got a new SD card and nothing. I dont recommend this camera!it's hard to find a true manual focus camera under $200, let alone under $100, so if you want to be able to take the occasional closeup photo (particularly without the flash) and what hobbyist doesn't, then you are hard pressed to find a cheaper way to do it than with this camera. other features you won't find on most sub $100 cameras are 2-second timers (most only do 10 second) and 720p video clip ability (most only do 460p). some tech notes for accessories; best to buy >2000ma rechargeable batteries, and class 6-10 memory cards to get the most capability out of this camera. the green "newbie" setting and simple large icons make this a perfect first camera for a pre-teen/teen, while hiding a lot of functionality to explore as their photographic education and sophistication grows.
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