Fujifilm FinePix J28 10.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

Purchased this for my Mother as a gift for Xmas 09 to replace a much higher end HP that was more complicated than she liked and took forever to save even the lowest res pics. She used it briefly over the holidays, liked it fine but her dislike of using her last camera got her out of the habit of taking pics. Fast Forward to this morning.... Family is visiting and she wanted her camera to capture the memories. Battery is low, so after we finish tearing apart the house to locate the charge cable we plug it in and ... nothing. Dead.
Take out the battery... make sure the contacts line up... they do. I remove the mem card; take out battery; take out both mem card and battery... no luck. Check to make sure the outlet's got power - It does. Test the cable on another device... cable's good. When we're out of ideas, I go online only to discover people are reporting a bunch of sthese Find out this is a common problem. Nose around a bit, try some other troubleshooting solutions... See a couple posts which suggest turning the battery over - but they have a different model than ours, and there's only one way the battery will fit in this model. Besides, I'm not that stupid.

Well, that's where I was wrong. Even though the battery is shaped like those preventing improper insertion - think of a miniUSB plug that's wider on the bottom than the top - that's not the case. I flipped the battery over so that the side of the battery bearing a circle design is facing the same direction as the lens and inserted it brass-contacts-end first. Bingo!

I consider myself a pretty tech savvy guy. I'm no expert, but I've built computers, and have been a technophile for over two decades, this one got past me. It's so obvious, and I felt pretty dumb doing it, but it worked. My cam's not dead and I'm not eating the postage to send it in for repairs that it doesn't need; so before purchasing an addiional charger or new bateries try flipping it over.

Haven't run enough pics thru it to give it a review other than to say, battery issues aside, it's pretty idiot-proof and does everything it's advertised to do. I got this one with a case and 2 gig card as a combo for about 80 bucks. At that price you can't expect top end Photographic equipment, if it lasts a couple years, it'll be a great buy. Chuck it like a bic lighter, or a carnival goldfish and get another.

Great camera, very user friendly, crisp pictures, and great battery life. I definately made a good choice with this camera. I have two pictures also posted up to show the picture quality.

I bought this camera for my daughter for Christmas. She used it one time, and now the camera will not power on. We have tried replacing the battery and that did not help. This seems to be a common problem as I see a few recent reviews whose cameras also will not power on. So, now I need to spend money to ship it to Fuji so they can send me a refurbed unit back. This is a bunch of crap, if I wanted a refurb, I would have bought refurb.

This is the 3rd Fuji finepix series camera that I have purchase for myself or others and it is the best yet. Most cameras have problems with fluorescent lights or sodium lights but this one gives accurate colors every time. Focus is nice and sharp and the recharge time for flash is much better than the others. That may be due to the built in LiIon battery pack which gives great battery life. No more buying a brick of AA alkaline batteries for a special occasion. Great deal for the price.

It was a gift for my son who is deploying overseas. He received it for Christmas, and by the time he came home in early Feb for leave prior to his departure, the CCD had apparently died. He bought a new camera, lacking time to get this one repaired. So we can get it fixed and have an extra camera, or return it for credit and swallow the cost of the battery and extra memory.

Seemed like a nice package, but I can't say I'm impressed by the quality. Wish I'd stuck with Canon.