Home > Consumer Reviews > Fujifilm FinePix 40i 2.4MP Digital Camera /MP3 Player, Blue

This was my introduction into the world of Digital Camera's. I bought this camera for my trip abroad. I wanted something small and light but I did not want to give up functionality. I had no problem giving up the zoom that was just something for me to break when shoving it into my bag. This camera has been dropped and kicked and it still works great. I have not had any problems uploading or downloading the pictures and the printed pictures look amazing. I highly recommend this camera to any one with an active life style who wants a great camera with out the bulk. I did buy much larger memory cards and have two sets of rechargeable batteries. I love the fact that if in a pinch I can go to the drug store and pick up some AA batteries and keep snapping.

I am not sure what surprises me most about this camera. Probably the fact that it is 2 years old and still outperforms many others! It is in a class by itself. You will be hard-pressed to find something comparable for its size, resolution, or features.

You can shoot an incredible 2400x1800 picture or listen to mp3s from this unit, not much bigger than 3" x 3" square. Swap the included memory for a 128mb SmartMedia card and you have about two and a half hours of music (at the lowest bitrate, 96kbps) or close to 100 images at likely three times the resolution of your computer monitor. You can even shoot short video clips.

The FinePix 40i is not without its downsides, however. The software is worse than what you will find on most $50 webcams. The music downloading program forces you to use the USB cable and its own proprietary format, so don't bother with any speedier SmartMedia readers (like PCMCIA). I am still dumbfounded as to why they did not give an option for voice annotation, since there is a microphone built-in for video recording. And the lack of zoom is annoying but understandable given its size. That said, in my opinion, it is still the small camera to beat.

Would you believe this has been discontinued? If you live in the US and are awaiting the next version of this great camera like I was at first, just buy this one now while you can. The 30i and 50i have come out in Europe and Japan but are doubtful for release here. Plus, FujiFilm actually cut costs so they are not as good. The 30i has a nice feature though to upload pictures to certain cell phones in Japan, which would be cool. They also improved the ultra-basic mp3 remote included with the 40i and offer new colors. But since those aren't coming to America, do yourself a favor and pick this up -- then you can laugh at everyone wasting their money on a Kodak mc3. This costs only slightly more but it is leaps and bounds better!

I bought my 40i 2 years ago when I was in Japan where they have the exclusive pink version. I love that I don't have to have two separate items for digital photos and MP3's! That alone is what made me buy this camera. But the photo quality has been great too. Pictures generally come out true to color and, if you get a 64 MB card, it holds a bunch of them to boot. Compact, convinient, efficient. Not only that, it is exceptionally user friendly. Setting it up for my Macintosh was a breeze.

3 gripes:

1) Prodigious appetite for batteries, as been noted in other reviews.

2) I have two Fuji cameras, this and an APS. I love them both, but they both have the same problem; at short range, the flash is strong enough to vaporize a cow. Long range flash is virtually useless on this camera. (Fortunately, my APS Fuji has great flash range.)

3) No zoom in the highest quality setting.

Despite the niggles, there's no better camera/MP3 player for your money. Oh, and if you're in the market for one of these little jewels and you're planning a trip to Japan, get the pink one!

I recentaly bought a fine pix 40i, and its great i love it. I would have spent money (...) on an mp3 player, and that would mean the camera part would be like (...) bucks. The camera takes remakable pictures