Casio EXILIM ZOOM EX-Z77

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Poor
Range & Quality of Features	Diverse
Ease of Use	Awkward
Durability	Good
Overall Look & Design	Excellent
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	comes in a lovely array of colours and a small beige leather case, good size
Disadvantages:	picture quality, you have to fiddle around with the setting too much for a simple digi cam

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I got quite a bargain with this camera. For some reason or other it had ended up on a reduced shelf in a shop - I think someone had returned it because there was a problem with the battery. I rescued it (for a small fee!), bought a cheap battery online and hey presto - new digital camera that didn't need sellotape to keep the battery compartment closed.

So - what was my verdict....

Design

Ok let's start with the outside aesthetic. This camera is pretty, very pretty. It isn't too heavy, has a really nice face in attractive colours (mine is blue) and a large screen on the back. And mine came with a lovely little beige leather case. All in all quite girlie really!

Ease of Use

In some ways this camera is very easy to use - the buttons are an ok size for me (and i'm clumsy and have large fingers) but the menu's and some of the settings are hard to get to. It's not a very intuitive, user-friendly process. I can never remember how to get to the flash! For a relatively cheap digital camera you also have to do a lot of the thinking yourself - which setting should I use etc? And there are A LOT of shoot options including Best Shot, Party, Scenery, Portrait with Scenery and the more obscure - Auction, Soft flowing water, Pet and food. I know these will all have their uses but I don't know what they are. I just want to point and click with this kind of camera.

Picture Quality

This camera is 7.2 megapixels and I have to say when I upload my images onto my computer i'm not always THAT impressed with the results. Now i'm not a professional photographer or even a serious amateur (i'll leave that to my boyfriend) but I do like taking nice pretty pictures of pretty destinations, kooky signs and my friends to put on my computer desktop, facebook, in photo albums, on my walls etc. And whilst most of the time these are fine - sometimes the photo's are just too hard to take and other times the final quality just isn't up to scratch. Not quite sharp enough. I know if I wanted very high quality I should spend more but I thought a camera priced around £130 would give me decent quality at least. Some of my shots once uploaded aren't usable.

The other aspect I mentioned was the difficulty in taking some of the shots - if it is a scene which isn't sunny, outside and still A LOT of fiddling around with the settings is required. More than i'd expect from this kind of camera

Durability

Now i'm a very clumsy girl so it bodes well that this camera is still with me after a year and still functioning.

I'll also talk about battery life in here. The camera comes with a rechargeable battery and charger. Pro - no more buying battey multipacks. Cons - the battery life just doesn't seem to last very long which means i'm often left camera-less on a trip if i haven't pre-empted and charged.

Overall

Overall i'm glad i bought this camera - it is a very attractive little thing and is good enough for my needs most of time but if i'd paid full price I think I would be a bit disappointed. Not as easy/stress free as you'd expect...