Available for under £85, the 4.0 megapixel Photosmart M22 is one of the lowest-priced major brand cameras on the market, which makes its watersports credentials all the more impressive. It is also the smallest and cheapest camera to feature HP’s Adaptive Lighting technology and in-camera red-eye reduction.
The M22 is described as weatherproof, which is not the same as waterproof. While Pentax’s outstanding Optio WP can be immersed at depths of 1.5m for up to 30 minutes, the HP M22 is only able to withstand splashes, rain and spray, but even that will be an advantage if you lead an active lifestyle. It has a reasonably sturdy aluminium body, the controls are all rounded and recessed, and when not in use the lens is protected by a sliding cover, which also doubles as the on/off switch.
The lens, always the most important single component on any camera, is also of rather inferior quality. It is equipped with a very small fixed-length F2.8-6.5 lens equivalent to approximately 36.5mm on a 35mm SLR. In other words there is no optical zoom on this camera. It does have a 6x digital zoom, but as I’ve explained in previous reviews this is best avoided. Even on quite sophisticated cameras digital zoom degrades the image quality by enlarging the pixels in the centre of the frame and discarding the rest.