Model Design / Appearance (7.75)
The Nikon Coolpix S51c is one of the most stylish digital cameras on the market. It combines a silvery front plate with a glossy black back plate, and melds it together with chrome highlights and sides. The S51c’s surface is smooth – almost greasy – and looks good. The metal body makes it feel sturdy, although shaking the S51c when turned off will make users think otherwise. It sounds like something is too loose when turned off; it’s like shaking a Christmas present that hasn’t been wrapped well. This problem only occurs when turned off, though. As for its appearance, the Nikon S51c looks great and fits well into the “Style” lineup of Coolpix digital cameras.
Size / Portability (7.75)
One of the best characteristics of this digital camera is its tiny size. Its body is fairly flat, and the wavy contour makes it even easier to slide into a pocket. The greasy smooth surface helps, too. The Nikon Coolpix S51c measures 3.8 x 2.3 x 0.8 inches and weighs a mere 4.4 ounces without the battery and SD memory card. This makes it a great camera for consumers on the go. The camera comes with a thin fabric wrist strap that attaches to an eyelet on the right side.
Handling Ability (5.0)
Portability is a strong point, but it comes at the expense of comfortable handling. The greasy smooth surface is great for sliding into a pocket, but not so great for holding in place and snapping a picture. There isn’t a hand or finger grip. There isn’t a thumb rest on the back. And when you hold it with both hands, you have to be careful not to block the lens with the left fingers. It can be handled with only one hand, but it’s tougher because of the slick surface.
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 Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (5.5)
The control buttons on the Nikon Coolpix S51c are tiny. If you have large fingers, don’t bother with this slim model. Its buttons are for those who trim their fingernails to points. The only button that is adequately sized is the shutter release button atop the camera.
For the most part, the buttons are labeled intuitively. On the top of the camera are two round buttons labeled with icons not seen often. These buttons are for the automatic fix/face detection and picture mail functions.
The S51c has a neato rotary dial that also acts like a standard multi-selector. It can navigate through menus and modes by pushing on the sides or by rotating either way. Rotation is much easier on the fingers than the constant pushing a traditional multi-selector requires. This interesting control doesn’t make up for the overall miniscule size of the buttons, though; whatever positive step was made in handling because of the rotary dial is lost with the other tiny buttons.
Menu (7.5)
The Shooting menu is easy to find, as there is a designated menu button on the camera. The S51c’s menu is similar to those on other Coolpix digital cameras. It has a light gray background with black text on it showing the options. The selected option appears with a yellow background. If you are confused about any particular option, you can push the telephoto end of the zoom control and a help guide appears with a brief explanation of what the option does. For instance, the ISO sensitivity is explained as “Control the camera’s sensitivity to light. Displayed in ISO equivalent settings.” The following is the Shooting menu.
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Image Mode
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8M High, 8M Normal, 5M, 3M, PC, TV, 16:9
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White Balance
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Auto, Preset Manual, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Flash
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Continuous
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Single, Continuous, Multi-shot 16
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BSS
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On, Off
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ISO Sensitivity
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Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
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Color Options
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Standard Color, Vivid Color, Black-and-White, Sepia, Cyanotype
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AF Area Mode
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Auto, Manual, Center
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The Setup menu isn’t as easily accessible. Most digital cameras offer a portal of some form from the Shooting menu, but the Nikon S51c hides the Setup menu among the exposure modes. Instead of pushing the menu button to access the Setup menu (that would make sense, wouldn’t it?), users have to push the mode button and scroll along the virtual mode dial with the rotary control to the setup icon. This positioning takes some getting used to.
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Menus
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Text, Icons
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Welcome Screen
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Disable Welcome, Coolpix, Select Image
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Date
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Date, Time Zone
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Monitor Settings
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Photo Info (Show Info, Auto Info, Hide Info, Framing Grid), Brightness (1-5)
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Date Imprint
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Off, Date, Date and Time, Date Counter
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Vibration Reduction
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On, Off
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AF Assist
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Auto, Off
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Sound Settings
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Button Sound (On, Off), Shutter Sound (On, Off)
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Record Orientation
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Auto, Off
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Auto Off
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30 sec, 1, 5, 30 min
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Format Card
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No, Format
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Language
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Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
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Video Mode
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NTSC, PAL
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Reset All
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No, Reset
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Wireless Settings
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Network Profile (OK, Cancel), Sender, Address Options, Picture Bank (On, Off), Password (Set/change password, Delete password), Key Information (4-digit password that links camera to My Picturetown), Reset (No, Yes)
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Firmware Version
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Coolpix S51c Ver. 1.0, MAC address 00-13-e0-9d-ea-7f
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The Setup menu has an option to select text or icon displays of the menus. The icon display is awful, though. The icons aren’t very intuitive and they are all so crunched together that it makes them difficult to see.
Overall, the Shooting menu is very intuitive, but the Setup menu makes it difficult to find and adjust settings, like LCD brightness, and tough to perform functions, like formatting the memory card.
Ease of Use (6.0)
Could an average person pick up this camera and take a picture? Definitely. The Nikon Coolpix S51c is a classic point-and-shoot that can snap pictures with the push of the shutter release button. It automates just about everything. But there are a lot of cameras that can do that. The S51c’s cool features are also its most difficult to figure out. Take the wireless transfer technology, for instance. Only users who know what a WEP is should attempt this. The camera can automatically find a hot spot, but it needs the password. This is only half the battle. Uploading images to Nikon’s photo sharing site, My Picturetown, isn’t flawless. You have to register with the site first, which requires you get some key information off the camera, which must be dug from the Setup menu. Granted, all of this is possible when reading through the user manual or hacking through the age-old process of trial-and-error. But is the S51c’s wireless easy to use? I don’t think so.
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