The HP Photosmart 945 is the biggest, bulkiest and heaviest camera in this group by a wide margin. In fact at first glance you may not even realise that it is a digital camera as it is styled to look like a regular 35mm film camera. The 'film canister' actually houses four AA alkaline batteries, and doubles up as a comfortable grip that is good for steadying the camera.
Besides its looks, the HP Photosmart 945 stands out in this group as the only 5-megapixel model and it also has a massive 8x optical zoom, compared to the 3x figure of the other models. The result is that the HP takes pictures that can be up to 3MB in size at an enormous resolution of 2,608 x 1,952 pixels, compared to a typical 'fine' resolution of 2,272 x 1,704 with a 4-megapixel model.
The optical zoom can pull the subject right up to the foreground from an enormous distance, but the downside is that when you turn the HP on there's a fair amount of whirring as the lens extends and sorts itself out.
You also have to remember to remove the lens cover and if you want to use the flash then you have to flip the unit up. None of that is hard work but you have to remember to do it, and in that respect too the HP Photosmart 945 is more like a traditional film camera than a compact digital camera.
HP has made it easy to use this fully featured camera by fitting a 2-inch LCD screen which has helpful notes on the menus so you should have no need to refer to the manual if you have any prior experience of digital cameras, although you may have some trouble figuring out which button turns the LCD on in the first place.
There's an unusual feature in, of all places, the viewfinder. A sensor shuts off the display when you put the camera to your eye to save battery power, and in the viewfinder it looks as though you are looking through the lens, however it is actually a magnified portion of the displayed photo. We were happy to stick to using the screen in the regular way although you have to take more care to avoid camera shake that way.
Although the pictures that we took using macro weren't particularly impressive, the rest of the interior and exterior shots were very good and when we used the zoom it was no surprise that the HP Photosmart 945 was in a league of its own in this group. Clearly the HP Photosmart 945 isn't much use to you if you want a slim camera that you can drop into your jacket pocket, but other than that it's superb.
