Nikon Coolpix S230

Viewfinder

Like most modern point-and-shoot cameras the Nikon S230 lacks a viewfinder, so you'll have to frame all of your photos using the 3-inch display. This can be a problem in bright situations, however, as displays tend to wash out in direct sunlight.

LCD

The Nikon S230 features a 3-inch touchscreen display that takes up most of the back. Unlike most cameras that have a 4-way control, the S230 requires you to make almost all adjustments via this touch-screen. We found that it was relatively responsive and the buttons on the display were large enough to easily hit with our fingers. Don't expect it to be as responsive as an iPhone. The display seems to use resistive technology, which requires you to press on the screen a bit to get a response. One problem with touch-screen displays, of course, is that you will get smudges on the screen, so we recommend you carry around a cleaning cloth with you. The resolution of the display is 230,000 dots, relatively typical for a camera in this price range. 

Get ready to touch your screen with the Nikon S230.

Flash

The Nikon S230's tiny flash is located just above and to the left of the lens. We expect that you'll likely see some issues with red-eye given how close to the lens it is, but the S230 does have built-in red-eye fix, we weren't able to tell how effective this was, however.

The flash placement is liable to cause red-eye issues.

Lens

The Nikon S230's features a 3x optical zoom lens with a 35mm equivalent range of 35-105mm. The aperture range is adequate with a maximum aperture of f/3.1 at the wide end and f/5.9 at the tele end.

The 35-105mm lens.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

The only jack found on the Nikon S230 is a single mini USB port found under a plastic cover on the bottom of the camera. This port serves double duty as both a data transfer port via a USB cable and an A/V out for connecting the camera to your television.

The Mini USB port does double duty for data and A/V.

Battery

The Nikon S230's battery is found under the larger cover on the bottom of the camera, right next to the memory card slot. As you would expect the battery is as small as the camera itself, Nikon rates it for only 160 shots so you might want to pick up an extra if you expect to be taking a lot of photos.

The battery and memory card slots are both under the same door on the bottom.

Memory

The Nikon S230 supports standard SD cards, including high-capacity SDHC cards that are available up to 32GB in size. The memory card slot is found on the bottom right next to the battery slot.