Product Reviews

Genius specialises in PC peripherals, but also makes a range of 10 digital cameras. The P6533 costs just £80 but is one of the pricier, more sophisticated models. Genius seems to be avoiding the highly competitive £100+ market, but most of the big brands have cameras at around £80. As such, the P6533 has some tough standards to live up to.

The camera feels robust but the red colour scheme can't hide a frumpy design. The lack of face detection and SDHC support for memory cards over 2GB simply add to the dated feel. The experience gets worse when you switch it on, with a six-second delay before you can take a photo, and

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five seconds between subsequent shots. This is partly down to the slow autofocus, which takes up to a second to get going and between two and three seconds to lock on to its subject. At least the controls and menus are well organised and quick to navigate. Continuous shooting lasts for just three images and video capture is limited to 320x240 pixels, both of which suggest an underpowered processor.

After such a bad first impression we didn't hold out much hope for the P6533's image quality, but it was surprisingly good. Details were a little soft on close inspection but we put this down to gentler sharpening than most cameras use. However, corner focus was sometimes poor, which is a fault of the lens. Exposures were generally well judged and the automatic white balance coped well with artificial light and flash photography. However, a tripod or the flash was necessary in low light, as the maximum ISO of 400 is too slow for dimly lit handheld shots. Noise was reasonably understated, but complex textures and darker parts of photos exhibited colour noise, even in well-lit scenes.

The P6533 isn't a bad camera but we still recommend Samsung's NV8 as it costs just £10 more and is better in almost every respect.