If you do NOT want to be driven to insanity

do NOT purchase a Kodak EasyShare C340.

The brand and name (easy share? C'mon lol) made me suspicous when I first bought it. Unfortunatly, it was the only remotly good deal either Costco or Staples had at the time.

Immediatly I noticed the flimsy design of the camera, after using several others from my family. The plastic spinning "mode" dial seemed as if it would snap off each time I spun it to get to Macro.

Initially the camera worked great. Took over 80+ pictures. But then something strange started happenning the day I needed it for New Years pictures... Every time I'd turn it on, it's led would flash green normally as it was loading up. I'd see the LED screen light up... but then the LED would turn red and the camera would shut off.

I assumed it was the battery going out (strange after only 2 days? and no "low battery" indicator?) so I tried out a few others. A few dozen others... Finally on "borrowing" a pair of used Energizer batteries, I got the camera working... For another 2 minutes. The batteries were low, and so I didn't get any life out of them. I tried several other energizers, finding 2 more that worked... untill I moved the camera in the slightest way. Then I'd get that damned "red light" again, followed by the camera shutting off.

No matter what I do, I cannot use the camera more then a few seconds.

I did a search online to find many bad reviews of the C340, and countless others experiancing the same problem, red light, and camera shutting off... It's apparantly caused by the CHEAP manufacturing of the camera. The electrical contacts quickly loose their ability to keep the batteries in place, so every time the camera moves, the battery moves, and the contact is lost, shutting off the camera.

So now I'm stuck with several dozen pictures on a camera that I can't EVEN START UP.

I'll see what I can do tomorrow...