Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera Review

Oct 02, 2008 - By Richard Baguley
The new flagship in Nikon's Coolpix S (for Stylish) range is the S710, a $379 point-and-shoot which boasts an awesome 14.5-megapixel resolution, 3.6x zoom lens and optical image stabilization. But just adding more resolution does not guarantee a winning camera; in other ways, the S710 is less impressive. At a time when many cameras are shooting high-definition video, the S710 shoots only standard definition, and has only an analog video output. And we found a few handling quirks in our hands-on tests at the Photokina show; the zoom control is poorly placed. Of course, we'll have to wait until we can get this camera into our testing labs before we can see how much benefit increasing the resolution to 14.5 megapixels might make, but the high-end compact camera range is definitely looking competitive.
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Conclusion
The S710 ups the ante in terms of resolution, pushing point-and-shoot camera up to an incredible 14.5 megapixels. There is perhaps an argument that few really need this resolution level (especially on a compact camera), but it is nice to have the option to zoom in on a photo during the editing process and still have plenty of resolution to play with. Other than the resolution, though, there is not a lot of new stuff in this camera; it shoots standard definition video, has the same optical image stabilization system as previous camera generations and doesn't offer much else. The 12800 maximum ISO may be useful, but that comes at a big price in terms of resolution, pushing the maximum down to 3 megapixels.

And, despite what Nikon claims, it is not the smallest camera with this resolution; the Samsung TL34HD has the same resolution and zoom range, but is somewhat thinner. The Samsung also shoots high-definition video, so it looks like the S710 has some stiff competition. We'll be taking a closer look at both cameras soon.

Likes 

- Big, bright screen
- Wide zoom lens
- Plenty of resolution to work with

Dislikes

- Poorly placed zoom control
- No spot metering
- 6400 and 12800 ISO settings only work at lower resolution
- Only shoots standard definition video




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