Joint-cheapest at £90, the Benq brand may not compete with the likes of Fuji and Olympus for high-street visibility, but the C540 does feature a Pentax-supplied lens.

With a silver/grey metallic finish the camera looks drab, although a leather-effect handgrip to the side helps disguise the plastic build.

Similarly, the two standard AA batteries needed to power the camera add a degree of sturdiness. For storing images, there’s a slot for a removable memory card (SD format), although none is supplied. Instead, there’s a 9MB internal memory and a cheap carry pouch.

Main features include a 5-megapixel resolution, a 3x optical zoom plus a 2.5in LCD screen to the rear (there’s no optical viewfinder, so factor in additional battery drain as a result of having to rely on the LCD).

The camera takes two to three seconds to power up, the stubby lens extending from a flush position to maximum wide-angle setting. In operation, main controls are quick to respond – particularly the zoom – with the buttons being larger and less fiddly than some competitors.

Although outdoor images display some pixel fringing (slight blurring) between areas of high contrast – this is quite common among digital compacts – in the main they’re reasonably sharp and colourful. However, indoor use of flash bleaches out detail, while turning it off leads to image blur and quite pronounced image noise (particularly at ISO800).

Still, the control menus and icons have a cartoon-like simplicity, functions are easy to navigate and the camera is ideally suited to the beginners’ market.

This article is part of a group test of digital cameras costing £100 or less.
See also:
Acer CE-6430
Canon Powershot A430
Fujifilm Finepix A400
Olympus FE-170
Pentax Optimo M10

A table of features can be read via our pdf download above.