Model Design / Appearance (4.0)
Honestly, this digital camera is homely. It has a chunky shape and a plastic housing that is silver colored with a few chrome highlights. It looks square-shaped and has all kinds of grooves and platforms that make its landscape look more like Utah. As a result, it doesn’t slide into a pocket very easily. The Kodak EasyShare C663 has variety on its housing. The front has a volcano-like feature where the lens protrudes. Also on the front is an inch-wide textured metal plate with the Kodak logo on it. The back has platforms and slopes and grooves. The sides are slick and boring. Overall, the design is ugly and not cohesive at all. The C663’s features aren’t very innovative and that shows in its plain shell.
Size / Portability (6.0)
As stated above, the variability in the C663’s landscape makes it difficult to slide into a pocket. The lens and hand grip protrude on the front face, while different platforms and buttons create small valleys and slopes on the back. This EasyShare will fit nicely in a pair of cargo pants, but wouldn’t stand a chance in tight Wranglers. Despite all this, the C663 isn’t a huge boat. It measures 3.3 x 2.5 x 1.4 inches and weighs 5.3 ounces without the battery. To make it more portable – or rather just to keep users from dropping it – Kodak included a wrist strap eyelet on the right side. A thin fabric wrist strap is included with the camera.
Handling Ability (7.0)
The Kodak EasyShare C663 may be hideous, but it is functional. The hand grip is not attractive, but works very well. It has a sloped outer edge that makes handling very comfortable and a stepped inner edge that makes it easier for the fingers to curl around for the grab. The shutter release button on top of the grip is properly positioned so fingers won’t have to strain or cramp to snap a shot. The two zoom buttons on the back’s top right corner aren’t entirely comfortable to push but are just fine to rest upon; there are eight plastic bumps below for a thumb grip. The bumps don’t work very well, but the thumb will be on the zoom buttons most of the time anyway. Overall, the handling was comfortable. One caution though: the left fingers could easily get in the way of the built-in flash.
Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (6.0)
 For the most part, the Kodak C663’s control buttons are awfully small. The zoom buttons are small and hard to push. The burst and flash buttons atop the camera are tiny, as are the buttons to the right of the LCD screen. The Share button is small, but it's spaced so far from any other button that it doesn’t really matter. Rather than a traditional multi-selector, the C663 has a tiny joystick that can be pushed in any direction. In addition to its diminutive size, the joystick has sharp edges on its tip – so after pushing it around to change something in the menu system, you might be grabbing your thumb in discomfort. The buttons to the right of the LCD screen are also strangely positioned. The top buttons (Delete and Info) aren’t used nearly as much as the bottom buttons (Menu and Review); Kodak should’ve swapped their places. Still, the manufacturer didn’t get it all wrong. The most important button of all, the shutter release button, is nicely positioned and sized. It is surrounded by another good control: the mode dial, which is large and grooved and easy to turn. Overall, the controls are too small but there are a few good components.
Menu (6.5)
The C663 has a simple menu system that is very intuitive and easy to view, but isn’t designed for frequent changes. The recording menu has an enormous font that can only fit five options on one frame, compared to seven or eight options on some cameras. The C663’s menus are easy to read with the white lettering and a yellow highlighted selection box set against the blue background. The icons run down the left side (“WB”), the option title appears at the top when scrolled over (“White Balance”), and the selected choice appears down the center (“Daylight”). The following menu comes from the Manual recording mode.
|
Exposure Bracketing
|
Off, +/- 0.3, +/- 0.7, +/- 1.0
|
|
Picture Size
|
6.0 MP, 5.3 MP (3:2), 4.0 MP, 3.1 MP, 1.1 MP
|
|
White Balance
|
Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Open Shade
|
|
Focus Zone
|
Multi-Zone, Center-Zone
|
|
AF Control
|
Continuous AF, Single AF
|
|
Color Mode
|
High Color, Natural Color, Low Color, Black & White, Sepia
|
|
Sharpness
|
High, Normal, Low
|
|
Reset to Default
|
Continue, Cancel
|
|
Set Album (Still)
|
Clear All, Exit, Birthday, Holiday, Wedding
|
|
Image Storage
|
Auto, Internal Memory
|
|
Setup Menu
|
(portal to setup menu)
|
Because only five options appear at once, users must scroll and scroll if they want to access options such as Image Storage. There is no scroll bar or page number to show where you’re at in the menu system and there are no folder-like tabs or anything to organize options neatly. Keep in mind, the target audience for this camera are point-and-shooters; Kodak assumes this group won’t delve into the menu system anyway. The following is the setup menu, which can be accessed from the recording and playback menus.
|
Return
|
(returns to previous menu)
|
|
Live View
|
On, Off
|
|
Camera Sounds
|
Exit, Theme, Power On, Focus Lock, Shutter, Self Timer, Error (all of these have Exit, None, Default, Animals, Fun, and Music options)
|
|
Sound Volume
|
Off, Low, Medium, High
|
|
LCD Brightness
|
High Power, Power Save
|
|
Auto Power Off
|
10 Minutes, 5 Minutes, 3 Minutes, 1 Minute
|
|
Date and Time
|
Set year, month, date, hour, minute
|
|
Video Out
|
NTSC, PAL
|
|
Orientation Sensor
|
On, Off
|
|
Red Eye Preflash
|
On, Off
|
|
Date Stamp
|
Off, YYYYMMDD, MMDDYYYY, DDMMYYYY
|
|
Video Date Display
|
None, YYYYMMDD, MMDDYYYY, DDMMYYYY, YYYYMMDDHH:MM, MMDDYYYYHH:MM, DDMMYYYYHH:MM
|
|
Blur Warning
|
On, Off
|
|
Language
|
English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Russian, Czech, Turkish, Dutch, Arabic
|
|
Format
|
Memory Card, Cancel, Internal Memory
|
|
About
|
Kodak EasyShare C663, Firmware Version 1.0000
|
Again, this menu isn’t neatly organized but it is easy to read, since the text is all in capital letters. The order of the options isn’t very intuitive, so users will be guessing which way to scroll for the LCD Brightness option. The next menu comes from the playback mode.
|
Album
|
Clear All, Exit, Birthday, Holiday, Wedding
|
|
Perfect Touch Technology
|
Yes, No
|
|
Crop
|
Yes, No
|
|
Slide Show
|
Begin Show, Exit, Interval (4-60 sec), Loop (On, Off)
|
|
Multi-Up
|
(shows view with 9 images on frame)
|
|
Copy
|
Picture, Exit, All
|
|
Protect
|
Yes, No
|
|
Image Storage
|
Auto, Internal Memory
|
|
Setup Menu
|
(portal to setup menu)
|
This menu overlays the selected picture, which is nice. Overall, the menu system isn’t meant for heavy duty usage but is still functional and very readable. I like that there is always a “Cancel” or “Exit” option that will take a step back in the menu rather than shutting down the menu completely.
Ease of Use (7.0)
The aforementioned huge font is a help, and there are plenty of other ease of use features on the Kodak EasyShare C663. The hand grip makes handling comfortable, the large mode dial makes selections easy, and the mode guide explains what each position and scene is optimized for: “Children: Use for action shots of children in bright light.” As always, the red Share button also makes transferring and printing pictures simple. The C663 isn’t perfect with its painfully tiny joystick and disorganized menus, but users will still be able to point, shoot and print without having to dig through the user manual after every other shot.
|
