Review: Fujifilm FinePix V10 digital camera

With mobile phones, such as the Sony Ericsson W810i, now offering decent digital photo image quality plus video games and MP3 playback, sales of low-end digital compacts cameras have suffered.

Fujifilm has decided if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em and included gaming on its otherwise sophisticated FinePix V10 snapshot. However, the four provided – a numbers puzzle, a maze, a shoot-‘em-up and a ‘blockbuster’ style affair – soon get boring.

While undoubtedly a gimmick, this has at least resulted in a large, high-resolution 3in screen for the main business of taking and reviewing photos.

A row of essential controls – such as the menu, review and delete buttons – have been squeezed in just below, the left and right scroll buttons doubling up as a rudimentary joystick.

About a centimetre wider than a credit card, with a rechargeable lithium battery inserted, the V10 feels sturdy in the palm and its overall build quality is high.

However, with nothing substantial to grip when taking pictures, the screen can quickly become smudged with fingerprints.

Maintaining a cool, minimal look, a brushed grey metal plate hides a 3.4x zoom lens when not in use, which is cleverly controlled via a lever that surrounds the shutter button.

Upon powering up this same zoom leaps into action, extending fully and readying the FinePix V10 for a shot in around a second.

A speedy internal processor also ensures there’s little noticeable shutter delay – the wait between pressing the button and the camera taking a shot – while the FinePix V10 takes just a couple of seconds to store images taken at maximum resolution onto the 16Mb xD-Picture Card supplied.

Although the FinePix V10 boasts ‘just’ five megapixels, you would be hard pressed to notice a dip in quality or sharpness against the increasingly standard six, and colours are pleasingly natural.

In spite of the fact that controls have been pared down to allow the larger LCD, the FinePix V10 isn’t a total triumph of style over substance.

Grown up features such as low light photography up to ISO1600, which the V10 shares with its bigger brothers, the FinePix F11 and F30, haven’t been forgotten.

Come the summer and bright sunshine there’s also a low setting of ISO64 so images won't look bleached in the sun.

Add to this TV quality video clips with sound, however, and you have an inexpensive and stylish compact camera that ticks most boxes.

Also consider
Canon PowerShot A540 
Verdict: An identically priced budget camera that may not look as swish but packs in 6 megapixels
Rating: 4/5
Price: £249