Quit working after the warranty ended (1 year) But I fixed it. ...hehe!

After reading many reviews with sample photos online, I decided to buy the DX4330 mostly for it's lower price at the time and it did (still does) take good snapshots as long as I don't make prints bigger than 8x10. The camera is easy to us and fuss free but it over-compresses the images (murdering them) to very small jpeg files. My next camera will definately have RAW format. I know this camera would produce razor sharp images if not for the JPEG compression. Anyway, one year after purchase and after much use, it failed to power up. OK... out of warranty and dead. I had nothing to loose, so I hit the camera on the back rather hard and it came on. Great!
After a few days, the same thing.... no power. I kept the camera working for a long time by banging it a little when it failed. (bye the way, this says alot about the sturdyness of the lens, as it still takes sharp pictures)
Then it quit working alltogether.
I opened the camera and just for the heck of it, loosened as many screws as I could find and tightened them securely again, put everything back together and walla! Fully functional ... for about 1 month.
Now I'm not a rocket scientist but I can figure out a thing or two. I noticed that every time this camera failed, it was after powering down or during lens movement. So I took it apart again and examined the lens assembly, already figuering that it's a worn switch or something.
I found the problem to be a variable sliding resistor (potentiometer) attatched to the side of the lens assembly that tells the camera the position of the zoom lens as it moves.
I know how potentiometers can get worn in spots or dirty, so I cleaned it.
The camera is still working after 3 months and has produced over 1200 pictures of which I had over 300 recently made into real 5x7 photos that look real nice.

I can't say I would not buy another Kodak camera but I can say I would look somewhere else first the next time. I'm thinking of buying the Olympus c-7070wz soon, as this DX4330 may not last much longer.