Squeeeeeee!  My very first blog contest! *streamers and confetti raining down*

I was contacted by a marketing firm to try out the new HP Photobooks, which being photography-related is of interest to me.  They threw in some extra ones for blog contest prizes, too (do I have your attention??).  I had to think on it, though.

I didn’t start this blog to get free stuff.  Not that getting free stuff isn’t always appreciated.  (Hello, Ferrari, Louis Vitton…are you listening??)  I just didn’t want to get in a habit of doing this type of thing.  However, after reviewing the product online, I though it was something I would actually like to try out.   So, those are the parameters I plan to use.

As part of this whole deal, they interviewed me and put it up on their website.  You can find my interview as part of HP’s Photographic Memories project here, as well as a few interviews from my blog mates.  It was a lot of fun to read about how all these lovely ladies got into photography.  (You have to pick each blog out of the list to see it.)

So, here is MY COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL OPINION on these little suckers.  I should also note that they threw in one of their HP Photosmart printers for me to use, as well, which does make printing them easier.  Well, it would have if there would have been a printer cord in the box and if the print driver would have loaded right.  However, I’m lucky enough to live with Mr. Computer Geek that never met a cord or cable that he would throw away, so I was saved!  After an hour of searching for the print driver on the internet, checking to see what was wrong, plugging and unplugging, shutting off and down…I finally got the dang thing to work!  Never let it be said that I give up to the technology gremlins…I won!

Pros:

• The software was easy to load on my computer and use.  I also tried to look at it as someone that doesn’t already understand how to use photo processing software.  I was pretty intuitive and the different template designs were nice.
• The templates are cute and there is a variety of them.  The allow you to add text to some of the pages and there are a variety of layouts for each design.  You can also move your photos around from how the program initially places them in the layouts. 
• Althought you cannot customize the templates, you can just create your own 5×7 or 8.5 x 11 pages if you want something different.  Big one for me, I generally like to have something different than the out of the box designs.
• The books themselves have nice hard covers and seem to be made well.  It is easy to put the picture pages in them and it seems secure.
• The price point of $15 for the 5×7 and $25 for the 8.5×11 books is reasonable (find a 20% discount code here – good until 12/31/2007).

Cons:

• I would have liked to have both sides of the paper printed on, but you can’t really do that with books you print at home.  That is generally saved for press printed books.
• The book colors are just okay.  I’m a fan of more darker, richer colors than what they have.
• They should include more pages for the books, since 12 just isn’t enough pages when there is only printing on one side.

Now, how can you win?  Very easily!  Just leave me a comment!  I have two samples of 5×7 and 8×10 books.  I will give away a sample of each size to two lucky individuals.  I am planning on using one of those random number picker sites to pick the two winners.  You have until this Friday, November 9, to post a comment, and then the winners will be chosen.  Good luck!  (lurkers this is your chance to come out of hiding, oh shy ones!) 😉