hacked Rebel... or Rebel XT?

[giles]

Neither choice would be bad.  In your shoes I'd go with the XT for the following reasons:

o it's the current model
o operation is faster (so the reviews say -- no personal experience)
o operation is easier as the manual and firmware will match
   With the hacked firmware in the original Rebel, not all the firmware
   settings work, and you have to remember which is which.

Back when the alternatives were Rebel+hacked firmware or a 10D I bought the Rebel, and am mostly satisfied.  (I'd be happier if I'd been able to use it more, but that's not a problem with the camera!)

As I have not seen the Rebel XT I can't comment on the viewfinder.

Giles

[alinii]

I don't think I need 8mp. I want a faster camera, but isn't smaller the viewfinder of XT? I want a black camera, but is also plastic.
Is a better choice the new Rebel XT than first one (hacked, ofcourse)?

[larkvi]

I have a hacked Rebel, and, while I am happy to have some of the added features, I would point out that they are in fact hacks, and only really useful because the camera lacked them in the basic mode...so if you plan to use things like mirror lock-up and whatnot that the hack enables, you are much better off with the XT, where they are native features.

I would much prefer to push the shutter release twice to lock-up and fire the shutter, as there are a lot of things that can go wrong with setting your shutter lockup on a 3s delay (as in, that could be the exact moment the wind picks up...)

Look at the features list. If you don't need the new features, don't care about the extra MP, and want to save $200, then the 300D is fine, but keep in mind there are several hardware advantages to the 350D, including instant power-on, faster write speed, faster shooting, more shots per burst, etc. that you might find extremely useful.