Average, We Say

Compact, sleek, and stylish best describe the V803. It is available in a range of eight eye-soothing colours from red to blue to pink; we received the matte-black one.

The clean layout of the keys along with a menu that is easy to navigate are plus points of the V803; the tiny zoom keys, along with the joystick, make navigation tough, though. Twenty-two different scene modes including panoramic stitching make this point-and-shoot camera novice-friendly. The range of ISO speeds is from 80 to 1600; the large 2.4-inch LCD has clear and legible icons.

The inbuilt 32 MB of internal memory is not enough—just eight-odd photographs! Memory expansion is available, though, via SD/MMC cards. Surprisingly, the AV cable, a standard bundle with most digital cameras, is missing.

The panorama mode can be used for stitching three photos side by side, discarding the originals. The red auto-focus assist lamp is precise over a short range; accuracy degrades in dim lighting. The auto-focus is time consuming; it’s buggy, focusing wrong areas in the viewfinder.

The snaps we took were well-exposed, with the right amount of colour. The sharpness was pleasing as well. There was some amount of purple fringing, though. Kodak’s inbuilt Perfect Touch technology auto-enhances the snaps with dynamic colours and contrast, while also adding up some noise, unfortunately.

Video mode allows taking 640 x 480 MPEG-4 clips at 30 fps. You can switch to a lower 320 x 480 to save space.

Overall, the Kodak EasyShare V803 is an average performer; priced at about Rs 15K it might look attractive for an 8 MP camera, but there are better cameras available at that price point.

Specifications
Dimensions (W x H x D):103 x 54.5 x 25 mm; weight: 141.5 gm; 8MP; zoom: 3x optical, 4x digital; battery: 1050 mAh; direct printing: ImageLink, PictBridge

RATINGS
Features :  3
Build Quality :  4
Image Quality : 3
Value for Money :  3
Overall  : 3