Olympus 790SW -- Type H XD??

[Windsurfer_NYC]

Today I bought the Olympus 790SW from Best Buy. I'd like to get a 2GB xd card, but am not sure if Type H will bring any benefit over Type M.

Strangely, Olympus doesn't offer the 2GB Type H card (see here (https://emporium.olympus.com/innards/emp.asp?val100=100&step1=1314&step2=0)), though Fuji sells one. I'm a little wary, though, after reading some comments on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Fuji-Type-H-High-Speed-xD-Picture/dp/B000M73ERC/ref=sr_1_2/104-8813805-3186337?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1189544019&sr=8-2). Any information on this would be greatly appreciated!

[Windsurfer_NYC]

Well, to answer my own question, and inform those of you considering the waterproof Olympus 790SW (http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1314&fl=4), here's the answer:

I bought a Fuji 2GB Type H xD card from the amazon.com link. The card would not work correctly. It would take pictures (nice and quickly), but after shutting off and turning the camera back on, the camera would ask to either reformat the card, or clean the card with a clean cloth. I went out and bought an Olympus 2GB Type M xD card, and it worked fine, albeit more slowly. [H = High Speed; M = Medium Speed]

The Specifications page of the manual lists "Memory: xD-Picture Card 16 MB to 2 GB (Type H/M, Standard)" but a tech support person at Olympus said that only 1GB Type H cards were tested and supported. Lame. Especially since Olympus and Fuji co-created the xD Picture Card. Why won't it work when the cards claim to be compatible?

And now for the second deal breaker: video. Firstly, the sound really sucks. You can barely hear anything. More importantly, video quality is not that great either. I found it quite grainy, sometimes with lined artifacts. Video is one reason I held out for the 790 over the 770, since the 790 advertised 30 fps over the 770's 15 fps.

The 790 has 3 "movie image quality" settings. In the manual, it is listed thusly:

SHQ 640 x 480
HQ 320 x 240
SQ 160 x 120

But no where do they list what the fps rate is for each (though it does on the website)! The default setting is HQ 320 x 240. I recorded videos over last weekend on this setting, only to find that it records at 15 fps. Lame. Then last night I tested SHQ. This does record at 30 fps, but (a) the video is really grainy (sound terrible) and (b) IT ONLY RECORDS FOR 10 SECONDS!. Really lame.

Thinking this could not be their intention and that maybe I had a bad camera, I called up Olympus. They confirmed that this setting only records 10 seconds on the SHQ setting. Why would they limit the camera like this? It makes no sense. I started to explain what a hassle this is to the consumer, saying that the advertising and manuals were quite misleading, and guess what? They just hung up on me! That was the last straw. Goodbye Olympus, back to Canon.