GE G1 Digital Camera Review

GE G1

First Impressions Review

Mar 11, 2007 - By Richard Baguley
1.7 The digital camera market today is a place of razor-thin profit margins and competition more reminiscent of a street brawl than the gentlemanly rivalry we used to see. As such, we don’t see newcomers very often since most companies look at the entrenched hold that the big companies have on the camera market and decide to move into new markets where they are less likely to get a bloody nose. But newcomers do try their luck sometimes, and General Electric is giving it a go.   Actually, General Electric is only sort of giving it a go; the electrical and broadcasting conglomerate is licensing their brand to a new venture called General Imaging. The new company announced a range of 8 cameras at PMA. You can find out more details on their web site or by watching our video tour of the whole range here. Their launches are broken down into four product lines: the budget A series, the intermediate E series, the compact G series and the high-end X series.  We decided to take a closer look at the G1, the first of their new compact range. The G1 has a 7-megapixel image sensor and a 3x optical zoom lens. Pricing and availability has not yet been finalized so keep an eye on our news pages for details. We looked at a preproduction model of this new camera at the PMA show in Las Vegas.
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External Reviews
 
Viewfinder
There is no viewfinder on the G1. All of the framing and previewing of images is done through the LCD screen.
 
LCD Screen
The LCD screen of the G1 is a 2.5-inch TFT model with 153,000 pixels. That’s a little low for a screen of this size, and images did look rather jaggy. Colors in our limited testing at the PMA show looked acceptable, but they lacked punch. However, this may be due to the harsh lighting at the show; we’ll reserve judgment on the screen until we examine it under daylight and other lighting conditions.  
 
Flash
The small flash of the G1 is located right next to the lens, and this could cause red-eye. The G1 does include red-eye removal, but we’d prefer to see the flash located a bit further away from the lens. General Imaging claims that the flash has a range of a foot (at both wide and telephoto), out to 10 feet (at the telephoto setting), or 11 feet (at the wide setting). We weren’t able to test the validity of these claims on the show floor. Check back in the coming months for our full review to see how the G1's flash performs. 
 
Zoom Lens
The zoom lens is a 3x zoom model of unknown manufacturer, with a focal length range of 6.4mm to 13.9mm. The 35mm film camera equivalent is 38mm to 114mm, a pretty standard range that would be adequate for most users. We would like to see more at the wide end, though, since that would make shooting group shots easier.
 
There is no optical image stabilization built into the lens, but the G1 does include electronic image stabilization, where the camera tries to boost the shutter speed to eliminate camera shake.

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