Labs

Trust is better known as a low-cost peripherals supplier than a camera maker. Even so, with a resolution of 4 megapixels and priced at around £150, the 820 LCD will make people sit up and take notice. What's the catch? Or has Trust produced the bargain of the decade?

Image quality

If only. The 820 LCD's 4-mega-pixel sensor is a CMOS chip, not a CCD. Theoretically, it should be capable of capturing more detail than any other camera here. However, it doesn't achieve it. Usually, all you see is weird colour balance,

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lack of saturation, a big tendency towards flare and dubious focusing as you get closer to your subjects.

Features

You can use the Trust as a webcam, and that's probably your best bet. It does let you adjust the exposure, and you can also modify what it optimistically describes as the white balance, but that's flattering its photographic abilities rather too much. The fixed-focus lens works well enough at normal distances. Close up, it's more hit-and-miss.

Design

The Trust feels as cheap as it is. It's solid enough, but the buttons are tiny and vague and the multidirectional pad isn't much better. The 820 LCD is also slow to start up and to respond to any input - you keep pressing the buttons because you think nothing's happened.

Overall

Hands up if you bought an Amstrad hi-fi in the seventies or eighties? Like those Amstrads, the Trust will sell on its jaw-dropping specs and price. It's only later you'll discover what you've bought. That's not to say the 820 LCD won't be a fun webcam or photo gadget, but for £150 you can get much, much better pictures than this.