There's small and then there's small. Nikon has put the compact in compact with its Coolpix S01 model, a truly dinky, palm-of-the-hand-sized compact camera.

Although miniature, this £149 compact isn't as tricky to use as we first assumed it might be. It's not as immediately comfortable as a standard compact though, but this looks like the perfect pocket or handbag-friendly snapper.

There aren't many buttons, with a basic yet easy-to-understand menu accessible via the touch screen and "home" button on the rear of the camera.

Its small size means a smaller-than-average 1/2.9-inch sensor size, a little smaller than that found in the majority of the Nikon Coolpix range. But it's this smaller size that helps keep the optics and therefore lens size to a minimum, though the 3x optical zoom range (28-87mm equivalent) is neither particularly wide-angle nor long.

The autofocus system is also the slowest we've seen in a compact camera for a while. It takes some thinking.

The SC01 includes 8GB of internal memory rather than a memory card slot and the battery, which can't be removed, charges via USB using a computer or other mains-powered device.

This is point-and-shoot at its most compact. Just take a look at how it sits against the Samsung Galaxy S III in our images gallery below and you'll see what we mean.