Casio QV-7000SX

When you've captured and stored your images, there are a number of ways to retrieve them from the QV-7000SX. For the more adventurous, the camera sports an infrared port and there's also an optional CompactFlash card to PC Card adaptor which costs £13. The simplest and most straightforward means of communication should, of course, be the standard serial cable link between PC and camera. Here, however, the Casio lets itself down with some poorly conceived communication software.

Using version 2.6E of the QV-LINK application, the latest according to Casio, I failed to get any type of connection established between camera and PC. I fiddled with baud rates, changed port settings, explored the help file for any clues and even tried the same process on other PCs, but all to no avail.

I finally managed to retrieve my images from the same PC using Casio's TWAIN software. This, to add insult to injury, didn't come as standard on the software CD and I had to download it from Casio's Web site.

There's little to separate the DC260, the C-840L and the QV-7000SX in terms of raw image quality. Ultimately, what really counts against the Casio are its ergonomics and poor PC connectivity. I found using the QV-7000SX difficult and uncomfortable, and, to make things worse, retrieving captured images was unnecessarily awkward. So, despite its reasonable price tag of just £426, the QV-7000SX can't rob the Olympus C-840L of its crown as the king of digital cameras.

Author: Martin Cooper