When reading reviews here and elsewhere, it almost sounds as if there are two cameras in question. The biggest problem seems to be battery life, but everyone is vague about this. I tested mine in the following manner: I put in a fresh alkaline AAA battery and took 24 shots in "high" resolution (640x480) at 8am. I then checked hourly until 11pm to see if the pictures were still in the camera. After 28 hours, I plugged the camera into my PC and saved the pictures to a file successfully.

While the software says "copy," it apparently means "move." The pictures were no longer in the camera following downloading to a file. So I immediately took 24 more. Same battery in the camera. After this, I no longer checked by turning on the camera. I hooked up at 75 hours and was able to view the pictures as a slide show, which didn't remove them from the camera. Same story at 110 hours. That satisfied my needs, so I checked no more.

This is in stark contrast to other people's experience, so I assume they either left the power on, or have defective cameras. Since current drain would be a design function, I suspect the former.

As for picture quality, it's okay for snapshots where you just want a record. Not unlike a very cheap film camera. I did notice some blurry areas that don't look like lens problems. Maybe the surface the image is focused on isn't flat. I was able to get decent pictures without much attention to holding the camera in a special way, but I know how to depress the shutter without jerking, which is the key. I was even able to take successful one-handed "palm shots" when I didn't want to be seen taking a picture.

So if you have the option of returning a defective camera, and don't expect salon quality (I could enlarge to almost 5x7 in my computer), it's a neat little cheapie camera.