Nikon Coolpix S630

Handling (8.00)

The Nikon Coolpix S630 is a very pleasant camera to handle. The distinctive ‘swoosh’ shape gives it a large and comfortable grip. It’s well balanced and fits in the hand with grace and ease. It also has a nice little dimple for resting your thumb in when shooting, which is a pleasant concession to ergonomics. We do have some minor complaints though. The highly reflective body is easily smudged, and I/O port and battery covers both feel low quality.

The S630 is available in Jet Black, Titanium Silver, Ruby Red (which we reviewed), Midnight Blue, and Royal Purple.

Buttons & Dials (8.50)

One of the touches on the S630 that we really love is the combined four-way controller / rotary dial. You can still push up, down, left and right, but you can also turn the dial, which makes scrolling through pages and pages of options far quicker than repeatedly button-pressing. The buttons are all well spaced, labeled and have pleasant tactility. The one oddity of the control scheme, that will jump out at most point-and-shoot users, is that the OK button at the center of the dial doesn’t do anything while shooting. On most cameras, this will bring up a quick menu, but not on this model.

Menus (7.00)

The S630 menu system is impressive, clearly laid out, with nice large text and a logical arrangement. While usually we dislike having to scroll through multiple pages of options to get to the ones we need, the scroll wheel on the S630 makes this task much easier. If you’re not particularly text-inclined, there’s also an option to switch the menu over to one entirely based around icons.

Manual & Learning (7.00)

The Nikon S630’s manual is a bit of a pleasure in comparison to some of the horrendous documentation we receive with compact cameras. It’s clearly written, covers features exhaustively, and has excellent diagrams, as well as a good table of contents and index.

The manual is a bit on the intimidating side, though, clocking in at around 160 pages. There’s also a simple Quick Start guide for users who just want to figure out how to turn on the camera and take a photo.