I have been using the Olympus µ[MJU:] 700 Digital Camera for three months now and from my experience of using it I can say that it is a high quality, user friendly and good value compact digital camera. Having never owned a digital camera before, I wanted something easy to use as well as having a durable and stylish body, and producing high quality images. Experience so far has proven that this camera completely fulfils these criteria. The instruction manual has simple and clear diagrams as well as easy to follow instructions that all users, including children could follow without any problems.

The camera has a 7.1 megapixel image sensor which produces crisp, clear images. The camera is very quick to start, probably only about a second, and the shutter release is instant so it allows you to capture images without 'missing the moment'. It is possible to turn the camera on and have taken a photo in just two seconds. The camera has a 3x optical zoom lens, generally speaking the higher the optical zoom of a digital camera the better. The camera also has 5x digital zoom, therefore with optical and digital zoom combined, the camera is capable of 15x seamless zooming. I've found the zoom on the camera is perfectly sufficient for my usage and the quality of the image is unaffected. The zooming capabilities of the camera are about standard for a digital camera; they are ideal for the majority of users and would only become insufficient for professional photographers or those who regularly take photos of small subjects from a considerable distance.

The camera has 23 different pre-programmed shooting modes, as well as a filming mode. Rather than listing them I'll analyse the most useful ones. Portrait and landscape are fairly standard and never fail to produce a good quality image. The camera has an indoor and candle setting. While indoor works well for any indoor situation, candle captures the warm glow you get from a candle. I was impressed with this as I'm sure you will know if you have ever taken a photo of a flame with a regular camera it often doesn't have that romantic warm quality to it, whereas taken with this camera it really enhances this effect. Another useful setting is the available light setting which is used for taking photos in lowlight conditions without a flash. Obviously where there is lowlight ideally you would put the camera on indoor mode so it flashes to produce the best image but the available light setting allows you to take photos, for example, of a sleeping baby without waking them up. The sunset and firework settings are fairly self-explanatory and optimise the image under those conditions. The camera also has three underwater settings, so if you purchase the underwater housing, you can optimise the images you take. Having not used these settings I cannot comment on how effective they are but I have used most of the other settings on the camera and I have been really impressed with the results.

With regards to the battery life, it is quite difficult to say how long the battery will last because it largely depends on how much you view back your photos on the screen, how much you use the flash or zoom the camera in and out as this is what uses up the battery. I would say that if I don't playback the pictures at all and rarely use the flash or zoom then I can take about 200 photos on a fully charged battery, if I do play them back, zoom or use flash this is probably reduced to about 150. The battery is about standard for a digital camera of this specification. I find the battery life sufficient but if you are on holiday for example and know you will be taking a lot of photos I would recommend charging the battery every day to ensure it doesn't die on you. It does have a low battery warning sign to alert you when the power is low.