Olympus FE-280

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	A dinky camera, packed with features .
Disadvantages:	Some compromises, but that comes with the price .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I was lucky enough to try one of these things out when a friend of ours bought it as a Christmas present for his wife. He showed it to me so I could make sure it was all working and I took the liberty of looking it up on the web and trying out all its features. I found out that it was really quite a nice little camera, and I wanted it so much it was tempting to slip her my old Olympus, she'd never know...

The first and most striking thing about this camera is the vibrant, massive LCD viewfinder, which is lovely on such a small camera. It's high resolution and 2.5 inches across give you a really clear example of what the photo will look like on a screen or print.

Another thing I've mentioned already is size. This 8 mega-pixel camera falls in with the ultra-slims at 0.65 inches thick and only a little bit bigger than a credit card. Such a small camera seems to be preferred nowadays because it can fit almost anywhere. Glove compartment, pocket, back, little pocket in a bag, behind your ear, in your hair (if you use a lot of wax). It's size is amazing for the features that it packs. And those features are:

20 scene modes, built-in guide, macro, up to 1600 ISO, BrightCapture Technology, VGA video, Face detection focus, and TruePic III. I'm not sure what TruePic is but I'm sure it's useful. The macro is amazing, and delivers satisfying close-ups even in relatively poor light. I also had the chance to record some video and for a point-and-shoot camera it was impressive. One drawback that may put people off, although I don't see why because you should never make home movies on a snapshot camera, is that you can record with sound OR optical zoom, but not both.

On the whole this camera is amazing for the size and price, delivering 8 mega-pixel photos that can be stored on the 48MB internal memory or an xD card. I've heard it even comes with a case for going underwater, but I didn't get to try that out. As usual it's not for professional photographers or people who want to be arty. Although cameras like this have come a long way, you can still never beat an SLR for that kind of thing. Want it for everyday snaps, posed family photos, interesting litter you find, close-ups of flowers and bees? It's definitely a good Christmas present.