If you've been looking for a computer-friendly, high-quality digital camera but have resisted because of your lack of techno-know-how, the EPSON PhotoPC 800 may be the camera to change that.

Digital cameras have advanced considerably in the past two years. Their batteries last longer, their pictures are clearer and, most importantly, the images they take are easy to retrieve from the camera.

Epson PhotoPC 800 can put pictures on your PC and spit them out of your printer in minutes, if you're computer savvy -- and in tens of minutes if you're not.

At first look, PhotoPC 800 is a point-and-click camera. Turn the camera on, aim it and shoot. Its 2.14-megapixel technology provides three levels of image quality. The low-resolution setting, along with its onboard 8 Mb flash card memory, allows storage of 120 images, good enough to view on a screen (640 x 480 pixels). This quality is not good enough to print.

But with a click of a mode button to the medium resolution, the camera will take up to 24 images of printable quality (1600 x 1200 pixels).

There are two further settings, to take high quality pictures suitable to be printed in a magazine. However, there's room for only 12 Superfine images (1600 x 1200 pixels, with medium picture file sizes) or 10 images if you use the HyPict (1984 x 1488 pixels) setting, which allows you to print out pictures as large as 11 x 14 inches.

The half-pound camera has a flash and auto focus for snap-and-go photography. For more expert shutter bugs, it offers more advanced features that allow adjustment of shutter speed, aperture size, focus and the use of spot metering.

It also has a nifty panorama setting like the disposable cameras for wide-angled shots and a 2x digital zoom setting for shots from further away. An auto-winder feature also allows several shots to be taken in quick succession.

One of the more interesting features is a built-in voice recorder that allows voice notes to be added to the images, so that you can remember the details of what you were taking pictures of. This is novel at first, but can get annoying, as a countdown is displayed on the built-in LCD viewer while the microphone is recording. Luckily, the feature can be turned off.

The camera is powered with two AA batteries that are easily sucked dry in hours, especially with frequent flash usage. The LCD display on the back of the camera can also be used as a viewfinder or to preview the images in the camera. This feature gobbles battery power, too.

Smartly, the camera can be set to take pictures through a traditional viewfinder, but the optics in it are not very clear and composing a picture this way can be difficult.

Because of the device's hunger for batteries, Epson has included four rechargeable batteries and a recharger in the package.

Images can be retrieved in JPEG format, via a USB or universal Serial Bus plug that fits into most newer Mac and Windows computers. Downloading images from the camera onto a computer is very easy and the software that is shipped with it is easy to use.

Reviewer's rating: 4 / 5

Comments: Simple to use, nice bonus features. Sadly, it is battery hungry and has a crummy manual view finder.

Price: $699 US