Kodak's V-series line-up easily outshines its brethren with its trendy design and the EasyShare V603 too didn't disappoint us in that aspect. While aiming to maintain its signature user-friendliness, the camera manufacturer attempts to further enhance the new model with more innovative features which makes sharing extremely simple.
Design
The V603 is small, compact and measures 92mm by 50mm by 21.6mm. It's either we're getting stronger by the day or the camera feels very light. When fully loaded with a Lithium-ion battery and memory card, the unit weighs only 138g which is comparable with Sony's ultraslim Cyber-shot DSC-T7.
The layout of the buttons on the V603 is very well-organised but we would have liked more dedicated buttons on the shooter. That said, we had no problem deciphering the different keys and their functions. A Share button on the back of the camera allows immediate sharing of images while the Favourite control lets the user access his favourite images easily. We're nitpicking, but the buttons are pretty tiny and it can get quite frustrating especially when changing settings while trying to hold the camera steady.
The dock connector (USB, A/V out) is positioned at the bottom of the camera and the slot for the memory card is on the right edge of the unit where the strap eyelet is. What we really don't like about the design of the compartment is that it doesn't come with a cover, so your card protrudes slightly out of the unit. It makes insertion easier, but there's also a high tendency to dislodge the memory card.
The menu system is easy to understand and we encountered little problems manoeuvring the different options on the graphical user interface.
Features
The Kodak EasyShare V603 is a 6.1-megapixel shooter using a Schneider-Kreuznach C-Variogon 3x (36mm to 108mm, 35mm equivalent) optical zoom lens. In addition, the V603 has a 230k-pixel, 2.5-inch LCD screen that displays sharp images.
There is a wide selection of shooting modes to choose from: Portrait, Night Landscape, Macro, and Sport to the more customised Fireworks, Beach, and Snow. For digital photography amateurs, there is an auto scene selection mode that lets the camera decide the most appropriate scene mode to use. Enthusiasts won't be looking at this camera since it doesn't offer manual controls.
The shooter comes with selectable sensitivity settings from ISO 80 to ISO 800, with ISO 800 available only when taking pictures at 1.8 megapixels.
The V603 records MPEG-4 compressed video with audio capture and playback capabilities. In addition, video capture also comes with digital image stabilisation and autofocus.
You can do basic editing of images and videos with Kodak's proprietary Perfect Touch technology including extracting a frame from a video, splitting a video and making a video action print.
This EasyShare comes with an internal memory of 32MB but you'd probably invest in a high-capacity Secure Digital card if you intend to shoot more than a few pictures. For our tests, we used Imation's high-speed 1GB SD card.
Performance
Start-up and shutdown time for the V603 were relatively fast averaging around 1.8 seconds. Time to first shot took slightly under three seconds with flash. We managed to shoot every 1.5 seconds thereafter without flash. With force flash, it took only a little longer at about 1.7 seconds.
Viewing our images was a breeze and nearly instantaneous as we scrolled through our collection. Battery life was average allowing us to take about 250 frames before we saw red on the status indicator.
Image Quality
The EasyShare V603 fared reasonably well by producing decent, saturated colours. In low-light conditions, the camera gave us well-processed shots with night mode on. Noise was well-controlled up to ISO 400, but at the maximum sensitivity setting of ISO 800, noise was easily evident.
We also noticed slight barrel distortion at the wide end of the zoom. However, we liked the Backlight setting in the scene modes which reduced flaring in our pictures.
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Mollie
13/12/2007, 01:39 AM
rating
5/10
its a good camera, but at the moment i'm experiencing a problem with my zoom button. everytime i use the zoom button it turns off my camera??? does anyone have a solution??? :-(
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sugarcandy16236
17/10/2007, 04:51 PM
rating
9/10
i love it best camera i have used so far! it has a great design..
Pros: so easy
hot design
great fotos
it doesnt lag!
Cons: none
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Matt
18/02/2007, 06:22 PM
rating
5/10
Pictures turn out dark very often. This camera made me sad
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jenna
10/02/2007, 05:22 AM
rating
10/10
it it small and you can take it wherever you need to because of its size.
Pros: small, 22 settings for picture taking, amazing quality
Cons: none that i have found so far.
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Mandy
04/11/2006, 11:52 AM
rating
8/10
I take this camera EVERYWHERE. What I do love most, is that it is extremely easy to use, and it looks fabulous..
Pros: Slimline, light, easy to edit pics and video. Very user friendly, and not intimidating
Cons: I am yet to come across any.
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