Review GE Power Pro X500

For starters, the Power Pro X500 sports a very impressive 16 megapixel sensor. The normal range for entry level cameras of this type is a 10-14 MP sensor, so that right there gives it a leg up on the competition. The camera’s lens can also hit a nice 15x optical zoom – it also has an additional 6x digital zoom, but I’ve gone over my dislike for digital zooms enough in the past. Most bridge cameras fall into the category of “super zoom” though, so that’s a fairly average zoom length.

In order to keep the cost down for the consumer (and while we’ll get to the price later, I’ll say that this camera is cheap) GE decided to forgo a rechargeable battery of any kind and make this camera run on four AA batteries. This is a bit of a double edged sword however, as the four batteries add a lot of weight (but it does seem to balance out the weight of the lens nicely), and you can only get about 300 pictures with standard AA batteries (supposedly you can get up to 500 with NiMH AA batteries though). While this won’t be an issue to the casual camera user, someone that takes a lot of pictures will find their operating costs to rise pretty quickly.

One thing that the Power Pro X500 has that most bridge cameras does not, is an optical view finder, for those times when you’re trying to take pictures on a bright day. It’s a great addition, and honestly it’s almost needed when dealing with the LCD screen on the back. It’s a 2.7 inch LCD, but it’s not the best quality at all – there were plenty of times I looked at a picture on the screen and thought I ruined a shot, only to see it look great on my PC monitor. To be fair, for such a low cost camera, I’m sure some concessions had to be made; the batteries were one, and the screen quality is definitely another.