Fujifilm FinePix S1500

Design & Appearance

The S1500 has the design of a DSLR and the appearance of a teeny tiny DSLR. The camera itself is mainly grip and lens. It looks cute, if only because smaller versions of things are inherently cuter. Its design is much simpler than a DSLR, if only in regards to the number of physical controls dotting its surface. Since the S1500 mimics drab DSLRs, don't expect it to come in festive colors.

Size & Handling

The S1500 is relatively small compared to DSLRs, but pretty big compared to the average point-and-shoot. The grip is big enough so your hand won't feel cramped while you hold it. It's easy to reach all the controls on top of the device without shifting your grip, but the d-pad is located a bit low on the back.

Our only gripe with the S1500 is the location of the controls on the back. They're a bit hard to reach when your index finger is on the shutter button.

Overall, the S1500 handles much better than a DSLR due to its smaller size, and actually feels a bit better in the hand than a point-and-shoot because of its sizable grip.

Menu

The S1500's menu changes dynamically (read: cuts options) depending on what shooting mode you're in. Menu navigation is simple: you use up and down to scroll through, and right will bring up a sub-menu. There isn't an easy way to scroll quickly or page down, which is a bit annoying. In general, however, the menu isn't remarkably different from any other menu.

The S1500 has a standard menu system, but the shooting menu could have used pagination.

Ease of Use

The S1500 occupies the relatively new, somewhat nebulous 'tween' space between point-and-shoots and DSLRs. It's decidedly closer to a point-and-shoot, however, which might make it a good first stepping stone away from a vanilla point-and-shoot.