Nikon Coolpix S3100 > Reviews (4)

If you haven't seen this camera before I'd be surprised. It seems to be on before, during and after every hollyoaks episode and other shows too. It is possibly the nicest camera and best advertised I've ever seen!

The camera comes in a range of colours, I brought the blue because it was so bright and gorgeous (I would take a picture but thats quite hard when I would take it on my camera? Maybe my webcam but we will see in a minute once I've written this review. The other colours are green, black, pink, red, purple and silver. I was quite shocked to not see white or orange included but I suppose with this range of colour that would just be fussy! (I just took a rubbish picture on my webcam to attach to the end of this review).

Now getting to the best bit. The camera is compatiable with SDHC cards only (brought seperately), which I found out after buying the wrong card and having many problems with it. The cards can be brought from a range of online or retail stores in lots of storage sizes so choose carefully. 4GB is the one I chose but I tend to upload pictures to my computer then delete them from the memory card so I have full space again.

My camera is obviously blue (therefore this is colour bias) and the entire camera is a metallic turquoise/lagoon blue colour. The 'Nikon Coolpix' writing is on one side, with the lens next to it. The flash is just below the button and there is also a handy little light above the lens which I will talk about in a moment. The back side of the camera is black and has a 6.7cm (2.7inch) LCD screen, a 'record' button for videos along with a circular dial with 'ok' button in the centre and 4 other buttons.

I quite like the sleek design of this camera as its stylish and colourful which is a hard mix - most colourful cameras are tacky or inexpensive and break easily.

Inside the box you will get: your camera (obviously), strap, rechargeable Li-ion battery, charging AC adapter, USB cable, audio video cable, software CD, quick start guide, users manual and your warranty. The AC adapter connects to the USB cable to charge your camera through the mains.

The Coolpix is 14 megapixels (which does actually mean nothing to me) but gives good quality pictures and apparently for the price I paid is very good! It has 5x zoom and shoots HD movies aswell as giving you several modes to help you take the best pictures. Admittedly, this camera gives gorgeous pictures and I am really surprised at how well they come out. I have used it for so many nights out and family events - even just for pictures for my blog or eBay! I have only used about 6 of the 'scenes' they give you - one being 'scene selector' which chooses the best scene type for the condition you're taking the picture in.

All of the scenes give good quality and I particularly like the 'close up' scene because it gives gorgeous quality on close up items. (I attempted to upload some pictures I've taken using the camera but the files were too big so apologies on that front!

Installing the software on your computer is fairly simple. You simply use your USB cord that comes in the box along with the CD and follow the instructions carefully. It takes about 5 minutes to set up on the computer including installation time. Admittedly, I don't use the software as my laptop has a slot to put my SD card in, so all my images are transferred this way not through the camera.

Charge of the camera lasts for about 24 hours, I have used it on 4 nights out without charging inbetween and it lasted well despite being turned on and off various times - I think this is quite good going for a camera as most don't last this long! To charge fully from a flat battery it takes approximately 3/4 hours, although I prefer to charge mine over night. The charge is done via mains using the charger port on the camera, unfortunately you don't charge it seperately via battery pack but these can be purchased seperately.

The zoom and flash facilities work really well, zooming in 5x I thought would give me distorted images, but actually they are just as good quality and sometimes even better than normally focused images. The flash gives the right amount of light to an image and doesn't make it yellow/orange like I have found other cameras do which is a bonus. It makes everything appear true to colour.

When it comes to on screen facilities, there are many options. I have mentioned the 'scene' button which allows you to select the type of environment you're in to get the best picture quality, but there are many other features. There is a 'playback' button which allows you to view your images, with a delete button below giving you the options to delete one, all or some of your images. You can also 'favourite' images which I like because on a night out I can select the best ones to show everyone whilst avoiding the terrible ones! The playback menu also allows you to quick retouch images, soften skin, add filter effects, change lighting and generally make your picture look better - but I prefer to do this all once on the computer. The 'menu' button allows you to edit movie options such as noise reduction and auto focus aswell as sound help. General settings allow you to adjust zoom, turn blink detector on/off and many other features. Comparing it to my mothers Sony camera, mine had more (and better) features. One thing I love is that when zooming in on a far away picture, you can save the newly zoomed image aswell as keeping the old one so you have two copies.

The only issue I found with the camera, but more specifially the company is their policy. I managed to get sand in my beach bag on holiday which got behind the lens and broke the camera. The camera comes with a one year garuntee (when brought in Tesco I am unsure if it comes with it when brought from other places) meaning any damage or fault will be repaired for free within your first year of owning the camera.

I did send my camera off and was charged £50 for repair, when I refused to pay Nikon upped the bill to £65 and it was £10 if I wanted them to just destroy the camera. After much complaint I did however manage to get it back repaired for free. I would be wary of this if you do damage the camera or come across a fault.

I brought my camera from Tesco and it cost £99.97, which is quite a reasonable price for such a good camera. It has lasted me 7 months, a holiday and many nights out and I hope it will last me many more. Prices and colours vary from store to store so be wary when you go into a shop to buy the camera. I find Tesco usually have offers on Nikon so they are your best bet for the cheapest price.

I really recommend this camera. Not only does it take amazing pictures, its cheap and keeps its charge which is hard to find in cameras nowadays - most don't last 5 minutes!