Digital Trends

Kodak V610

April 27th, 2006 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

The EasyShare V610 is a beautiful camera. Part of Kodak's Pocket series, it looks somewhat similar to the V550 reviewed last year, minus the ridiculous display dock. The long and thin digicam has a black faceplate with a sliding round metallic lens cover with “10X” prominently on view for the entire world to see. You'll also find the flash, mic and some subtle decals. Very nicely done. The camera measures 4.4 x 2.2 x .9 (WHD, in inches) and weighs 6.2 ounces with battery and card. The V610 has a lot of technology tucked into its skinny case. There are two prism folded optics lenses so they don't protrude and two 6MP CCD sensors. Alas, you can't double them for a 12MP image—2832 x 2128 pixels is the top setting.

The top of the camera has just six buttons, three have the cool blue RAZR feel and when all are lit, they indicate the battery is fully charged. It's the usual suspects: still, video, playback, on/off, flash adjustment and shutter key. The rear of the camera is equally minimal. It's dominated by a 2.8-inch LCD monitor that's rated 230K pixels. Although touted as “hi-res” it's not very impressive, lacking the sharpness of competitor's screens. To the right of the screen is the wide/tele toggle switch and four-way control with set key. The controller adjusts exposure compensation, macro/landscape mode and the display. As you press it you can access grid lines to properly frame your shots, a histogram or simply eliminate all the icons and other visual detritus.

To left of the screen are more of the usual suspects. One key lets you choose between 21 scene modes including panoramas, another deletes misfires, there's a menu key, another to review your shots and the unique red Kodak “share” button. Share with the V610 takes on the added dimension of Bluetooth. It's one of the few cameras with the technology built-in so you can beam images to a printer or computer. It receives them too. The share button also lets you print images, email them and assign favorites, something every Kodak digicam offers. But that Bluetooth--more on that in the performance section.

On the left side is a DC input for charging the battery, the right is clean while the bottom has a battery/SD card compartment, a tripod mount and a connector for either a Kodak EasyShare printer or photo dock. The logical choice is the Series 3 dock ($179) since it's Bluetooth-enabled and turns out nice 4x6 prints.

The V610 comes with a solid bundle (minus an SD card). There is 32MB of internal memory so you can crank off a few shots without a card. It comes with a battery, charger, wrist strap, pouch, A/V and USB cables, a USB/AV connector, a plastic insert so it can be mounted on a Kodak Printer Dock as well as an insert for Photo Frame dock 2. It's supplied with Kodak EasyShare Version 5.2. software and a well-design tri-lingual User's Guide (80 pages in English). Note: Kodak will be updating the software in May to Version 6.0 and it'll be available on its site (http://www.kodak.com/).

Image Courtesy of Kodak