14 December 2005 13:14 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Casio’s latest Exlim digital camera offers a bevy of features, but is it enough to woo the camera populous away from more traditional brands such as Nikon and Canon? We take a closer look.

The 5.0 megapixel, 3x optical zoom Exilim EX-Z500’s silm-line design (89 x 57 x 21mm) and 2.7 inch LCD on the back of the camera are the first things that you will notice when you take a closer look at this digital camera.

The bright crisp screen is noticeably bigger than most digital camera’s available at the moment - save the Sony T range - and the extra 0.2 inches means it's even bigger than the latest iPod or Creative Zen Vision:M basically if you’ve got one of these, you won’t need to worry about viewing your images on anything else.

For the most part the buttons are in the right places, although we kept on pressing the review button when we meant to zoom in and the camera mode button when we wanted to zoom out. Canon or FujiFilm camera users shouldn’t have the same problem as Casio, like them, has placed the zoom toggle around the shutter button.

Connection to a PC or Mac is via the docking station, and it's here that the Casio shows the first chink in its armour. To connect the camera to any computer and you’ll need the docking station. It’s a pain to have to carry around if your planning on docking on the move and there isn’t a simple work-around. That said, the inclusion of a docking station does mean that desktop users can easily dock the camera to download images. Downloading is quick and simple thanks to the camera’s USB2.2 support.

Casio boast that the EX-Z500 houses a proprietary SUPER LIFE lithium-ion rechargeable battery that can take up to 500 shots on a single charge. We are not sure we’ve taken that many, but we’ve been using it solidly for a week and it’s still going. It is certainly surprising considering the large LCD, but it seems Casio has managed to eek out enough juice for us not to complain about the lack of optical viewfinder to save battery power.

When it comes to taking pictures the EX-Z500 does very well with a quick response time. Additionally with 31 Best Shot modes ranging from standard Portrait to an Autumn Colours mode there is a setting for virtually every situation.

The modes are accessed via a button on the back of the camera and our only concern is that you can easily spend more time looking for which mode to shoot in, rather than actually getting on with taking the picture at hand.

Taking the picture will require you to invest in a SD card. The camera comes with a pathetic 8.7Mb of built-in memory, which equates to about three images at optimum settings before you’ve run out of space.

Using the Best Shot mode certainly improved the pictures we took as does the addition of Casio’s EXILIM Engine Anti Shake feature. For the lazy, the camera also sports an all round Best Shot mode that tries its best to cope with every situation.

In our tests the camera coped well with the different shots we tested it on. Especially the berries and the green lit party pictures (the count down is for the Xbox360 launch if you're interested). Likewise the London night scene with its varying light sources, moving vehicles and black sky shows the camera coped well in tough situations. We especially like the camera's colour reproduction.

Verdict

At £279.99 the Casio is a solid camera that will produce good results. The large screen will appeal to the party set that like to share the images straight after they've taken them and the end results are good for printing too.

Things to bear in mind are the need to lug the docking station around with you if you are hoping to dock on the move and the fact that you'll have to invest in an SD card from day one if you are looking to take more than three pictures at a time.

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Casio

Price as reviewed

£279.99

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The good

2.7 inch screen, battery life, Best Shot modes

The bad

Need docking station to transfer images or connect to the television, will need to buy a SD card from day one

Quick verdict

The Casio Exlim EX-Z500 is a solid camera that will suit the party crowd hoping to share their results as soon as they’ve taken them

Score

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