I purchased my Canon PowerShot A620 through Dell in mid 2006 and it has recently developed an interesting problem. Something inside the camera is blocking the top left portion of the image and when I shine a flashlight in front of the camera, it will adjust itself as the light changes. The only way to get "around" it is to zoom in and obviously that is unacceptable unless the only pictures I take are of distant objects.
I contacted Canon tech support about it and was instructed to remove the batteries for a few hours then reinsert them as well as to reset everything to default. Neither of these options worked.
They have given me two options, I can pay $99 to ship it in to be serviced, or I can pay $125 + $10 shipping for a refurbished A620 with a 6 month warranty. Of course I could also just buy a new camera.
I am definitely an amateur at picture taking and left the A620 on "Auto" about 99% of the time which produced excellent quality photos as long as I did my part.
So the question is, which option would you recommend I take - send in for service, buy a refurb, or just get a new camera? If you would advise me to purchase a new camera and be done with it, my budget would be around $100-150 but would spend a little more if absolutely necessary for an exceptionally good product. If you are wondering why I'd spend less on a new camera than the A620 originally cost, that is because I know that it was "too much camera" for me in that it literally stayed on Auto and I never really used the advanced features or manual ISO settings etc.
What say ye?
I contacted Canon tech support about it and was instructed to remove the batteries for a few hours then reinsert them as well as to reset everything to default. Neither of these options worked.
They have given me two options, I can pay $99 to ship it in to be serviced, or I can pay $125 + $10 shipping for a refurbished A620 with a 6 month warranty. Of course I could also just buy a new camera.
I am definitely an amateur at picture taking and left the A620 on "Auto" about 99% of the time which produced excellent quality photos as long as I did my part.
So the question is, which option would you recommend I take - send in for service, buy a refurb, or just get a new camera? If you would advise me to purchase a new camera and be done with it, my budget would be around $100-150 but would spend a little more if absolutely necessary for an exceptionally good product. If you are wondering why I'd spend less on a new camera than the A620 originally cost, that is because I know that it was "too much camera" for me in that it literally stayed on Auto and I never really used the advanced features or manual ISO settings etc.
What say ye?