Sanyo digiCAM VPC-X300

It's not surprising that the best examples of digital cameras released so far have come from big-name companies in the mainstream photography market. Olympus' C-1400L (reviewed issue 41, p184) and Kodak's DC210 (reviewed issue 40, p183) have been the pick of the recent high-resolution offerings, but it's not going to be long before other companies catch up. Sanyo, with little previous history in the photographic arena, made its last and only appearance in PC Pro with its 640 x 480 resolution Image PC camera (reviewed issue 25, p172).

Now the company has a high-resolution camera boasting a 1,024 x 768 CCD. Like the Kodak DC210, the digiCAM borrows much in the way of looks and features from traditional high-end compact 35mm cameras. It feels extraordinarily well built, even more so than the DC210, right from the sliding lens cover to the solid feel of the camera in your hand.

The ergonomics are better than the DC210's, too, notably in the positioning of the viewfinder - you don't end up with your nose pressed against the 2in LCD when using it. All the controls are in familiar positions: the shutter button rests under your right index finger, and a small LCD panel on the top of the camera, flanked by four small buttons, displays important information like battery life, resolution, flash mode and number of shots remaining. Although the design doesn't fit the hand quite as snugly as the Olympus C-1400L, if you're used to a standard compact camera, using the digiCAM will be second nature.

The camera features a standard viewfinder, unlike the Olympus C-1400L's SLR (single lens reflex), autofocusing, a ten-second self-timer, and a three-mode flash. There's also a 3x digital zoom function, with a range equivalent to a 36-108mm lens on a 35mm camera and, for close-up work, a macro option that has a range of 200-500mm. The digiCAM even has a motion capture facility that takes nine images at 0.1- or 0.2-second intervals and outputs them in a single 1,024 « 768 frame. You can also record audio comments to attach to photos using the built-in microphone.

Where the Sanyo doesn't match the Kodak DC210 is in the resolution stakes. Like the Agfa ePhoto 1280 (reviewed p181), the digiCAM sports a CCD with a resolution of 1,024 x 768, whereas the DC210 boasts 1,152 x 864. In testing, this deficiency was clearly evident. Images acquired using the Sanyo digiCAM captured a little less detail than the DC210, and image quality was noticeably lower than the best we've seen to date from the Olympus C-1400L. At the highest resolution - Super High 1 - shots can take up to 223Kb each and you'll fit in an average of 12. In Super High 2 mode, which uses a higher compression ratio, you can take around 24 pictures on average, and you'll get around 60 in VGA (640 x 480) mode.

The Sanyo's 2in LCD is one of the better ones I've seen, but it doesn't offer the advanced management features you get with the Kodak DC210. You can opt for a full-screen preview or view thumbnails of nine photos at once, but the interface is threadbare to say the least and can be frustratingly slow to respond. If you switch from one view to the other by accident, for example, you have to wait a few seconds while the picture slowly appears on screen and there's no way of interrupting the process.

Getting pictures from the camera onto your PC can also be a bit tedious, especially if you use the TWAIN driver. In this case the thumbnails take an age to appear, and even if you know the picture you want you still have to load the thumbnail first. In addition, once you've waited for the thumbnails to download, the TWAIN driver doesn't remember them the next time you start it up so you have to go through the whole irritating process again. Fortunately, the camera is supplied with a dedicated utility for downloading photos and sound clips that is a little quicker, but it's a far less elegant solution than the one you get with the Kodak DC210.