Point, shoot and save: 8 budget cameras tested

By Alex Kidman
28 March 2003 04:10 PM
Tags: digital, pictures, photo, camera, photography, budget, cameras, kodak

Kodak Easyshare CX4300

Kodak Easyshare CX4300

The CX4300 offers a professional looking camera and the most pure megapixel grunt of any camera we've looked at in this roundup. If you're after a camera that's capable of more than simple photo prints at a sub-AU$500 price point, the CX4300 should be right up your alley.

The CX4300 also has a number of stylistic differences from its other CX brethren; it has a removable lens cap rather than a shutter, so its on/off button is purely single-function.

Setup of the CX4300 is identical to the other Kodak cameras, and, indeed, pretty much identical to all of the USB-connected cameras we've looked at here. Install Kodak's reasonably friendly EasyShare software, connect the camera with the provided USB cable, reboot and you're ready to go. The CX4300 uses either a supplied non-rechargeable Lithium battery or standard AA cells. Kodak rates the supplied Lithium battery as being good for up to 425 pictures. If you want to go into Kodak approved rechargeable batteries though, you'd need the Kodak camera dock, which will set you back a further AU$149.

The CX4300 also shares the same menu setups as the other Kodak cameras we've reviewed in this roundup, including the star system to select image quality. In the CX4300's case, a three-star picture measures in at a relatively whopping 2080x1544. That added resolution doesn't entirely come for free, though; the 16MB of onboard memory is only good for around 11 shots, compared to the 20+ that the other two Kodak cameras were able to muster up.

Point, shoot and save
Introduction
1. FujiFilm A202
2. FujiFilm Slimshot
3. HP Photosmart 320
4. HP Photosmart 620
5. Kodak CS4200
6. Kodak CX4230
7. Kodak CX4300
8. Logitech ClickSmart 510
Editor's choice
Shooting on a budget?
The CX4300 is a 3.2 megapixel camera that shows how quickly digital cameras have moved down the pricing scale; it wasn't that long ago at all that anything above 2 megapixels would set you back anything north of a thousand dollars. At AU$399 it's extremely attractively priced, although your choice between this and the optical-zoom enabled CX4230 comes down to what you're likely to use the camera for. If you want poster-sized prints (28x36cm), then get the CX4300. Otherwise we'd push for the CX4230; the inclusion of a proper optical zoom adds a lot of additional possibilies that the CX4300 lacks. It does have a digital zoom that interpolates reasonably well, but again you can do better with an unzoomed picture and the right software. Like the CX4200, the digital zoom on the CX4300 jumps forwards in a rather abrupt manner.

The CX4300 met our testing photographic challenges with aplomb, delivering crisp and clear shots and bypassing the flash problems of its similar Kodak brethren. Although it (like every other camera in this roundup) is fixed-focus, it also managed to avoid too many blurry shots.

If Kodak included an optical zoom on the CX4300, we'd have an absolute clear winner for Editor's Choice. As it is, the choice is left up to the consumer; either have a larger-resolution camera, or one with optical zoom.

Kodak CX4300
Company: Kodak Australia
Price: AU$399
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 03 9353 2222

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Talkback 1 comments

    I have just seen an advertisem ...Anonymous -- 24/01/04

    I have just seen an advertisement for the CX4230 in a pop up when I went to the Korean Herald newspaper at http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/index.asp . It was selling there for 185000 Won which equals AU$204, half what we would pay for it. I wonder why we can't get it at that price here?

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