Big zoom is big business in the compact-camera industry right now, so much so that some manufacturers offer premium superzooms as well as budget-friendly superzooms in their lineups. The Fujifilm FinePix S4500 falls squarely into the latter category, offering up a 30x zoom range for just about $260—less than the price of a bunch of point-and-shoots.

Generally speaking, you get what you pay for with these low-cost long-zoomers. Recent S-series cameras have performed like cheap point-and-shoots that happen to have long lenses slapped onto the front.

From what we saw of the S4500—announced at CES 2012, but seen here on the CP+ tradeshow floor—the pattern is holding up for another year. If you’re still interested, read on for our first impressions.