The NV20 is a true ultra-compact with superb build quality and a slick black brushed-metal casing.

It manages to almost look simultaneously modern and retro - modern in that it has a blue LED and lens trim, large 2.5in screen and an array of unmarked control buttons yet retro in that it feels like a traditional camera.

Its top-mounted mode dial gives immediate and intuitive access to the main shooting modes, including full auto, program, movie and a fully manual mode.

To the rear, two rows of touch-sensitive buttons run along adjacent edges of the LCD. These work in pairs to select options from a pop-up overlay; a full button press then confirms the selected option. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s much quicker then jumping into and out of traditional menus.

Unlike previous NV models, the NV20 supports face detection, although we found this feature to be rather less effective than on some competing cameras. For example, the NV20 was considerably less adept at detecting faces than Canon’s Ixus 950.

Low-light shooting is enhanced by Samsung’s ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) technology, which boosts sensor sensitivity and uses digital image processing to reduce the burring effects of camera shake. It’s not a true optical system but it’s effective and produces a visible improvement over and above simply shooting with a higher ISO setting.

As always with cameras of this size, some image processing and noise reduction is visible even at low ISO settings, but overall we were impressed with the image quality of the NV20, which delivered very good exposures and natural-looking images.

For a camera of this quality, the £249 price tag is quite reasonable, but if this is outside your price range you can save £20 by buying the 10-megapixel NV15, or £20 for the NV8 at eight megapixels.