Casio QV 4000

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	Resolution, flexibility, features
Disadvantages:	Name, all those buttons, bulkiness

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought this camera when 4 Megapixels was big, and when purchased this camera was one of the cheapest with this resolution. It is now a year old, and has taken many hundreds of pictures.

I like the CompactFlash memory, it is generally available and cheap. The standard 16MB card just isn’t big enough and 128MB is barely big enough. 512MB allows a fortnight’s holiday worth of snaps and some short films too. The Casio batteries and charger have proved to be very good, but if you are unsure when you will be able to recharge them, switch the LCD display off! This is one just a button-push away.

In terms of the basics, the camera works well. Good crisp photos, although like other digital cameras, slow to actually take the photo, so it is not good for action subjects. The camera has a number of modes. I have used the film mode 30 seconds only, of relatively poor quality film, and consuming around 9MB of memory! The Automatic mode is the one most used, and does a good job. Programme mode allows you more control, for instance, to switch off the Flash, sometimes useful. I haven’t need to get to grips with the other modes

On the negative side there are too many buttons on camera. I like the joystick control, which could have been used more, allowing the removal of some of those buttons. I am not sure about the lifespan of the cover for the connectors, although so far it hasn’t failed.

Focussing is sometimes tricky. Zooming into a subject, especially in low light, typically moves out of focus, and re-establishing it can be tricky. Similarly, it is sometimes necessary to switch the point of focus, which again can be a little touchy. Zoom is good, but limited, and I would typically avoid digital zoom, being happy to edit on computer.

The camera is both quite big, especially in its depth, and quite heavy. Most people in the UK know Casio for calculators, so they won’t be impressed by the brand! Transfers onto computer are easy and fast, and on XP just a click and drag onto a hard disk. I don’t use the bundled software, just transfer the pictures onto disk. Prints are very good at all sizes up to A4 on my inkjet printer, with glossy paper.