The Casio Exilim range has done well for itself in the past, and in the new EX-770 offers one the most compact 7-megapixel digicams we’ve seen.

It’s slim and extremely stylish, available in a range of colours and while it looks like it’s overloaded with controls, these are well utilised making it extremely usable on the move.

The EX-770 houses a wide range of features for fine-tuning your photos; those with a good knowledge of photography should find enough here to get the most from their shots.

In addition, the functions that you’ll most commonly use, such as flash and shooting modes, ISO sensitivity and white balance adjustment, are made accessible as shortcuts on a vertical menu that sits over the LCD.

After a bit of practice you’ll find it takes just seconds to make quick adjustments to your shot for the environment. The LCD itself is bright and clear, and does a great job at previewing your photos.

Unfortunately as a replacement viewfinder it does slip up a little - at the widest zoom setting it’s not too bad, but zoom in and try to find the right shot and you’ll find that artefacts combined with a fairly slow refresh rates obscures the screen somewhat.

Resultant photos are very good for the most part, the Macro mode is excellent, close-up shots after dark are impressive enough but an ISO sensitivity of 800 means that long-distance night shots aren’t always very clear.

As a point-and-shoot solution, the EX-770 is very capable - the automatic mode is very good at making quick adjustments to the shot depending on lighting, making this a great camera for beginners.

It’s very usable and pretty forgiving in terms of camera shake, and its portability makes it an ideal solution if you’re looking to carry it around in a pocket or bag. Hunt around online and you’ll be able to save a bit of cash but at a little over £200 this is a reasonably priced digicam for the performance on offer.

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Fujifilm Finepix F30 digital camera
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