GE G1

Viewfinder (0.0)
GE is a newbie in the digital camera market, and as such probably doesn’t have a loyal following of consumers who are hooked to their optical viewfinders. The GE G1 leaves out the optical viewfinder and instead opts for the 2.5-inch LCD screen’s live preview. For users who wish to have framing guidelines, a grid can be turned on and off in the photo menu.

LCD Screen (6.0)
The GE G1’s LCD screen measures 2.5 inches diagonally and has only 153,600 pixels – much less than most digital cameras with similarly-sized screens. Most models with this screen size have 230,000 pixels and thus have a smoother view. That said, there are still several models on the market with a similar screen size that have 115,000 pixels. So while it could be worse, it could be a lot better. The G1’s low-temperature polycrystalline silicon TFT color LCD has a wide viewing angle when held to the left or right of eye level, but can’t be seen when held above or below the head at all.

In the setup menu there is a 10-level LCD brightness adjustment. There is a live preview of the brightness as users scroll through the options. This doesn’t help users view the screen outdoors, however, as glare is still a problem.

The screen’s refresh rate isn’t that great. It doesn’t even seem to hash out 30 frames per second, so all moving subjects look jerky – even when the exposure is locked. Some cameras have sub-par refresh rates when viewing but look much smoother when the shutter release button is pushed halfway, but not the G1.

Viewing the LCD screen outdoors under the bright sun is nearly impossible. It doesn’t matter what angle the camera is held at: the contrast between subjects and backgrounds can hardly be seen at all and the glare bounces off the screen to burn your eyes. While at the beach, I tried taking pictures of my son building sandcastles with his cousin. There was a stroller in the background, and more than once I mistakenly snapped pictures of the stroller thinking it was my son. The photos from the beach came out awful: overexposed with lots of heads cut off because I couldn’t see anything!

Overall, the screen size is great. The resolution isn’t as great, but isn’t as spotty and pixilated as some other models. If you want an LCD screen that will function as a viewfinder and review screen, but don’t care to have your friends crowd around for slide shows, then the G1’s LCD will be fine. However, if you want multiple people to view the LCD or are used to crystal clear resolution, it isn’t for you. Another drawback is that the LCD can’t be seen under harsh lighting, so if you primarily shoot at the beach or in the sun you may want to consider a camera with a better LCD.

Flash (5.5)
The flash unit is placed directly left of the tiny lens on the front of the camera. Despite the off-axis placement, the flash coverage is fairly even. If subjects are close to the camera though, the flash casts a stark shadow to one side. The flash doesn’t look very natural and it overexposes if too close to subjects, so users should turn it off when the Macro mode is in use.

According to the specs, when the camera was set to ISO 400 the flash was only effective from 0.98 to 10.8 feet (0.3-3.3 meters) with the lens zoomed out. It was only effective to 8.86 feet (2.7 meters) when the lens was zoomed in.

The following flash modes can be found by pushing the left side of the multi-selector: Auto, Red-eye Reduction, On, Off, Slow Synchro, and Red-eye Reduction + Slow Synchro. Even the On setting seems to have a few preflashes before it. All of the red-eye reduction precautions are quite necessary because the lens and flash are so close. I still ended up with a few test shots that had red eyes.

There is a Red-eye Reduction setting in the Playback menu. It didn’t work on my test shots, though. The closest it got was eliminating one red eye (one of two, of course) from a picture, but that almost looked scarier.

Overall, the flash component itself is decent, though weaker than many other ultra-slim digital cameras.

Zoom Lens (4.5)
The GE G1 has a small 3x optical zoom lens placed in the upper right corner of the front. This isn’t a very practical placement for the lens: it is easily covered by fingertips that wrap around the camera there. I snapped several shots of my lovely fingertip and even captured it in several movies.

The lens isn’t very wide. It measures 6.4-19.2 mm and is equivalent to 38-114 mm in the 35 mm format. It has max apertures of f/3.5 (wide) and f/4.3 (telephoto). While that figure is unimpressive at the lens’ widest, the max aperture in the telephoto end of the lens fares better than most comparable models. Many small cameras with internal lenses have apertures that shrink to f/5 or sometimes smaller. The f/3.5 aperture, however, doesn’t let much light in through the lens for low light situations.

The lens is constructed from 13 elements in 10 groups and backed up by electronic image stabilization. This isn’t to be confused with optical image stabilization, which is far superior and involves elements of the lens that actually compensate for shaking hands.

The Zoom control on this camera is perhaps one of the most annoying ever conceived. It is located on the right edge of the camera’s top – where the shutter release button should be. It gets worse. The control looks like a round dial with its bumpy shape and grooves in the edge – the G1’s included user manual even called this a “zoom scroll wheel.” There is no scrolling involved, though. It looks like something that would gently rotate left and right (um, scroll), but instead the entire bump is pushed right and left. This wouldn’t be a huge problem except for the fact there’s really nowhere to go on this small camera. There are only tiny spaces on the right and left sides, but they hardly allow any give. There is no tactile feedback: you can’t really feel the bump sliding left and right. The only way you know the zoom is moving is if the digital zoom display is moving and the view on the LCD screen changes.

The digital zoom display consists of a vertical line on the right side of the LCD screen with a “W” (wide) on bottom and a “T” (telephoto) on top. The bottom of the display is white and represents the optical zoom; the top is yellow for the digital zoom. A small horizontal line moves up and down along the vertical line to show where users are within the range. If users are ever-so-gentle, they can finagle eight stops of focal lengths.

The camera offers 4.5x digital zoom, but like all other digital zoom mechanisms it degrades image quality quickly.

Overall, the lens isn’t very impressive. It has a narrow 38 mm angle, a small max aperture of f/3.5 that won’t let in much light, and a control that is so hard to maneuver you’ll curse GE every time you use it.

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