Picture Quality / Size Options (7.5)
The GE A830 has the same 1/2.5-inch CCD image sensor as the other A-series camera, the A730. The A830 has more resolution crammed onto it though, with 8.3 total megapixels and 8 effective megapixels, as opposed to the A730’s 7 effective megapixels.
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In the Function menu, users can choose from a variety of sizes and compressions. The camera defaults the JPEG compression to Fine, which isn’t as fine as it should be on the Best, Fine, and Normal scale. The 8-megapixel Fine compression can save 12 pictures to the internal memory. The best compression saves only six, so it’s twice as detailed and sharp. The image sizes include 8M (3264 x 2448), 7M (3:2-3264 x 2176), 6M (16:9-3072 x 1728), 5M (2560 x 1920), 3M (2048 x 1536), 2M (1600 x 1200), 1M (1024 x 768), and 0.3M (640 x 480). This is a good range that is suitable for everyone, whether they are blogging, e-mailing, or printing photos. To see just how effective and detailed the A830’s 8-megapixel resolution is, check out the Testing/Performance section of this review. The A830 has trimming and resizing options in the Playback menu that allow users to shrink images to a computer-screen-sized 1024 x 768 and an e-mail-friendly 640 x 480 pixels.
Picture Effects Mode (6.5)
There are a few basic Color modes available in the Manual recording mode. They are located in the Function menu and include Off, Black & White, Sepia, and Vivid. There is a live view when scrolling through the options. Black & White looks just as it should. The Sepia looks a bit reddish and the Vivid really pumps up colors. This selection isn’t very impressive, but consumers paying less than $200 for a digital camera probably won’t get a ton of extras like this anyway.
