Model Design / Appearance (7.0)
The Nikon S700 is billed as a stylish digital camera with its sleek all-metal body. The brushed metal body looks sophisticated but can also look plain to some too. There are chrome highlights around the lens, top, and sides. The wrist strap eyelet and the buttons are also chrome colored to add a little flair. The S700 looks like a compact digital camera for adults: it doesn’t come in wasabi green or any outlandish colors that would make it look like something straight out of a high school girl’s handbag.
Size / Portability (7.75)
One of the greatest assets of the Nikon Coolpix S700 is its size. It is very compact with its 3.5 x 2.1 x 0.9-inch measurements and has very flat surfaces. It can easily slide into a pocket because of its pancake-like profile. It weighs a mere 4.6 ounces unloaded even with its metal face plate. The S700 aims to be extremely portable and, like many cameras its size, comes with a wrist strap eyelet on its right side. The included strap is made of cheap fabric and isn’t much thicker than a shoestring, but it’s better than nothing.
Handling Ability (6.25)
The S700 may be incredibly convenient to tote around in a pocket or handbag, but it isn’t as easy to handle. The same elements that make it convenient are the ones that make it hard to hang onto. The flat surface of the front doesn’t provide any hand or finger grip. The smooth and silky feel of the metal face plate doesn’t help either; this camera will slip right out of sweaty palms or sunscreen-slick fingers.
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On the back side of the camera, there is a divot on the right side that is so shallow it is hardly noticeable. It is an attempt at a thumb grip, but it fails. Nikon added a few plastic bumps on the right edge by the divot to mark where thumbs shouldn’t venture beyond, but they won’t stop a slippery thumb from sliding into the abyss.
Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (6.75)
 All of the controls on the camera body are the same silvery color. Most of them are plastic. The exceptions are the power and shutter release buttons on the camera’s top. They have a shiny chrome sheen and metallic feel.
The buttons on the back are all plastic. They are small, but are spaced far apart enough that most users won’t have problems activating them. All of the controls are properly labeled either with text or icons.
The most interesting control on the Nikon S700 is the rotary dial. It can be pushed on the sides like a traditional multi-selector or the ring can be rotated. The dial itself is cheap plastic and spins easily, but there are about eight speed bumps around the circle that provide some feedback as to where users are navigating.
All in all, the Nikon Coolpix S700 offers controls and buttons that are typical of compact digital cameras and then adds some flourish with the rotary dial.
Menu (7.5)
The menu system is easily found with the text-labeled menu button to the upper left of the rotary dial. The menu system shows up with a light gray – almost white – background and dark gray text. When an option is selected, the background turns yellow and the text turns black. There are few live views because of this opaque background. Only the white balance and color options come with a framed live view behind the menu. The following is the Recording menu.
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Recording menu
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Image mode
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12M High, 12M Normal, 8M Normal, 5M Normal, 3M Normal, PC, TV, 16:9
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White balance
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Auto, Preset manual (Cancel, Measure), Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Flash
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Continuous
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Single, Continuous, BSS, Multi-shot 16, Interval Timer Shooting (30 sec, 1, 5, 10, 30, 60 min)
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ISO sensitivity
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Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 3200
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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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Face priority, Auto, Manual, Center
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Distortion control
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On, Off
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Users can navigate in the traditional multi-selector style of pushing one side of the selector dozens of times or can easily plow through menus with a swipe of the thumb across the rotary dial.
The Setup menu is more difficult to find. It is not linked with the Recording menu. Instead, it is placed on a virtual mode dial that appears when the mode button is pushed.
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Setup menu
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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 an 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 (0-5)
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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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Digital zoom
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On, Off
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Sound settings
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Button sound (On, Off), Shutter sound (On, 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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Languages
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Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Norwegian, 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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Firmware version
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Coolpix S700 Ver. 1.1
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Menu navigation is much better than most compact digital cameras because of the S700’s rotary dial. The menus have large fonts that are easy to read, but more live previews of and a better placed Setup menu would improve the menus.
Ease of Use (6.25)
There are a few elements that make a camera easy to use. A mode dial certainly helps because users can easily find what they want. Properly labeled controls are a plus as is a help guide. The Nikon S700 meets about half of the criteria. It doesn’t have a physical mode dial, but a virtual one appears when the mode button is pushed. This isn’t the same as having a physical one on the camera though. The controls are mostly properly labeled, but the icon for the exposure compensation to the right of the multi-selector got wrapped around the corner and can’t be seen from the back. The S700 gets full points for having a help guide though. The telephoto end of the zoom toggle has a question mark icon and gives brief explanations for exposure modes and menu items. For instance, the distortion control option is described as, “Correct the peripheral distortion that characteristically occurs with zoom lenses at wide angles.” Props to Nikon for this feature.
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