I received the camera as an inducement to open a primere bank account at a local bank. After several months the camera would drain new and/or fully charged batteries within minutes of inserting. I had registered the warranty but when I tried to get the camera repaired, a sales receipt was required to validate the warranty. I would have to pay to have the defect corrected, plus shipping, myself! I had also purchased extra x-d memory cards and card readers. Guess What only one other camera mfg. uses x-d cards. I checked auction sites and found a lot of non-working d-390s for sale with the same problem as mine! Not only that but Olympus had a lot of rebuilt D-390s up for auction and even maintained an auction store featuring D-390s. My guess is that if you send your camera in to be fixed and the repair cost is too high, you just tell them to keep it rather than pay to have a broken camera returned to you. I feel like a real sucker!!!

I bought this camera about a year and a half ago. For the first few months it was great, some pictures had some color/grainy issues, but the camera did it's job. After it hit the one year mark, i noticed a decrease in the quality of the photos it was taking. more and more were coming out looking overexposed or 'whited-out'. I just took a trip, and 5 out of 18 pictures came out viewable. Not sure how log these are supposed to last for, but this one is heading for the scrap heap.

I like my Olympus D-390, but here are some faults I find with it:

- doesn't use power from USB when transferring photos to computer -- drains batteries instead!
- no optical zoom
- can't turn on menus when lens barrier is closed
- no dock
- no battery charger
- must wade through menus to get to scene selector (portrait, macro, landscape etc.) -- wish this was on a physical dial like on Canons

Stuff I really like

- price ($... Cdn at ...)
- self-portrait mode, where you can point the camera at yourself (is this mode unique to Olympus?)
- lens barrier, which doubles as power switch (lower-end cameras like Kodak's often don't even have a lens cap)
- quality: 2 megapixels are adequate for 5x7's

Tips
- by default, all the settings reset when you turn the camera off. Set it so that it doesn't do this (see manual for details)
- set the flash to be always off! On one shot it made my mom look like a ghost. Besides, with it off, pictures will appear as in their natural light.

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Update 2004-11-29
My mom just got a Canon A-75, and I am sooo jealous! It just pampers you. And macro mode is a physical control - no wading through menus to get to it! Be good to yourself and buy a Canon A-75 (or the A400, which is almost as good and costs a hundred bucks less).

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Update 2005-04-01
Figured out a way to avoid wading through menus to get to macro mode -- simply leave macro mode on all the time! It only kicks in when the camera is pointed at something close anyway. Problem solved!

Like I said though, if I were to get another camera I would get one of the Canon ones I mentioned. The D-390 easily blurs if your hand shakes ever so much.

I recently got this as a gift and it is my first digital camera. I am quite pleased with the pictures and features. You get what you pay for. To an extent there is slightly more noise than most camera's in its class but this can be easily corrected with noise reduction software. With a little patience and practice you should be able to get satisfactory results. My advice is turn off the flash and take pictures in ambient light as far as possible and hold camera extra steady. The pictures are good enough for upto 5 X 7 prints. Normal 6 X 4 prints are very good.

The reset function can be turned off. Please get in touch with me if any wish to see sample pictures. shinebob@hotmail.com.

I just bought this camera and find that it takes good pictures and downloads easily to a computer. As for the movie mode if you were looking for something that has sound or lasts longer you should have read the box it clearly states that the movie mode does not record sound and is only 15 secs. You cannot expect a camera that is under 200.00 to act like one that is priced over 300. You get what you pay for don't expect professional grade pictures from this camera if that is what you want dig a little deeper and shell out the extra cash for a better camera.

I received this camera as a gift. I was delighted to have it, but right away there was some disappointment. With flash, the pictures came out with a yellow tint. Without, they were often blurry and dark, even in a well-lit room.
The camera drains batteries, especially with the LCD screen, which needs to be on in order to zoom. It also turns on in my purse often.
Still, it is a decent camera for its price. It's compact and durable. In the 1.5 years I have had it, I have dropped it on numerous occasions, and though it bares many scratches, it hasn't stopped working.

This was my first digital camera and I am not impressed with it. It drains batteries within 1-2 hours of use, there is a large delay in everything and my camera dosen't ever turn on anymore. It does take beautiful pictures, though I have to admit. My advice is buy a Canon, Nikon or Kodak camera instead of any Olympus.

I got this as a birthday present several years ago. i still use it alot today. I have had a "whited out" problem, as other people have stated, but very rarely, and i can tell when its whited out and delete it and try again. Although it can be bothersome, ive never missed a good shot. The downsides are: picture taking delay, my brothers 3.2 megapixel camera takes the picture instantly, whereas if im riding in the car, i have to time my picture. the delay just after you turn it on is about 2.5 - 4 seconds, which is pretty bad, but the preceeding pictures take about 1 second. I barely use the auto flash, its too sensitive, it will only automatically turn the flash off if light is shining directly at it. for example, if youre in a brightly lit room, it will still use the flash. The only other thing i can think of is that its card isnt as widely used as other cards such as SD, so there may be a few things it isnt campatible with. but i reccomend it to anyone who wants a good quality, durable, inexpensive camera. i love it and ive had it for a long time!

The batteries drain so fast. 1st I thought it was battery problem so I bought a new set, but within weeks i was haveing the same problem again and my father in law has different digital and they last so much loneger. I can put a pair of batteries in take 2 pictures and there dead by the next day and the camera also wreck the battery as they can't hold a charge.
The 17 sec delay between each picture is so upsetting that why i getting a new carmera after 2 years. It was a waste of money

We still use it with no problems. So much has changed since then in digital cameras. But extremely reliable.

I was given this camera as a gift and loved it at first. Easy to use, took nice pictures. However, I agree with other reviewers--the batteries drain in days and the lag between shots was very long. Now (1 1/2 years later), even with brand new batteries, I cannot get the camera to stay on to take one picture.

This was a waste of money even if it was 10.00 it would be a waste! The camera drains the batteries within an hour or so! NOT WORTH IT AT ALL!

I just want to jump on the band wagon and say that this camera sucks up battery power much too quickly. I have bought so many different kinds of battery chargers thinking the problem was with the batteries I was buying. After a year now, I know the short life of this camera is due to the camera itself.

If you are a beginner (as in a teenager who has only used a cell phone camera before) this could be for you. It is straightforward enough: slide open the cover and it turns on. Aim, zoom if needed, and shoot. But it can't be quite that simple. No, half the time it "spazzes" out mid-click, leaving you in the dark (literally: the screen goes black for around seven seconds before getting back on track). And I hope you don't want it to take one shot right after another: it takes three to five seconds to write the picture to the memory card.
If you are headed anywhere that you intend to take a large quantity of pictures be sure and take an eight-pack of double-A's. This camera eats batteries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
If you use the movie option you will need even more. But there's a bit of a disadvantage to movie mode: there's no sound.
The camera does have a nice wide angle when zoomed out, but it doesn't zoom in very far. It does have a macro option, but it takes a dig through the menu to switch it on and off. Same goes for changing the size of the image. I dug through the menu and figured out how to change the dimensions. Once I bumped it up I had a fairly decent quality picture, as long as I had good light. Once it got to where a flash was necessary, the image became noisy. I have had this camera for almost three years and it finally died ("finally" meaning that it went through a year of spazzing, accelerated battery-eating, and increasingly slow response).

Essentials:
Pros: cheap; decent enough picture when you set the image size to a larger setting; simple, easy to use at any age or experience level; lasted a long time; simple upload from camera to computer.
Cons: noisy in low light; slow response; slow to write information to memory; camera mechanics noisy when taking the picture; stunted zoom; difficult to change modes (normal, macro, movie); often uncooperative (spastic).

So, final verdict:
If you haven't used a camera before, great! Go with it.
If you have used a camera before, don't.
If you're looking for a camera to give a child (tween and under) this is cheap, simple to use, etc., sure. Go with it.