Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Purchased and returned the camera. From an optical perspective and the quality of the images, quite a great camera. Considering the substantial cost, several items were very disappointing and caused me to return it on a cost vs. benefit aspect: 1) The camera does not come with a recharger and appropriate NiCad (or better) batteries. Regular alkaline batteries last about 30 min. for normal use. 2) The connection to the PC requires a serial port only. Would be a nice option to include USB hookup. My computer's serial ports are all used for other devices. 3) An 8MB flash card that holds a mere 16 images in the 'normal' mode. 4) When connected to the PC, the pictures cannot be easily transferred to software programs that can sort, package or send the pictures. A cumbersome copy procedure has to be utilized to get the pictures on the hard drive; from there they need to be imported to the software. Even with a 450 Pentium II machine, the transfer was slow (even at the fasted speed setting for the serial port). The instructions confirmed that photo software does not recognize the camera as a device to copy from. It should work just like a scanner (from a system's perspective). I think the folks at Nikon have a great camera here but need to work on making it more cost effective and user friendly. To bring the camera up to speed a minimum of another $200+ would have to be invested. (Batteries, charger and larger flash card) The PC hook-up could be greatly improved and made more user friendly. Considering the already high cost this is not yet a good package. I was sorry to return it.