Labs

The EX-Z70's slick design belies its low price, with its slim, brushed aluminium body and 2.5in screen. There are few physical controls, but the menu system is easy to navigate.

The EX-Z70 was the fastest camera on test, taking just 1.5 seconds to switch on and take a picture and 1.6 seconds between shots, which rose to 2.5 seconds with the flash. The 0.8fps continuous mode is less remarkable, but another option takes three pictures in one second and can be used with the flash.

Image quality was never alarmingly bad, but it did exhibit a number of traits that pushed it below average in this group. Detail was a little soft across all of our tests, and a mixture of JPEG artefacts, image noise and ineffective noise-reduction processing meant that both still images and video looked a bit messy. Colours were generally punchy, but high-contrast scenes suffered from blooming and lost detail in highlights.