Toshiba PDR-3310

Place the PDR-3310 and Kyocera Finecam S4 next to each other and you'll see an uncanny resemblance between the two. It's only on close examination that you find the Toshiba has a subtly different finger grip design on the front panel to the Kyocera.

Aside from this and a lower resolution CCD - 3.14 megapixels here - the two are identical. Both share the same 3x optical zoom lens (manufactured by Kyocera) and 1.5in, 110,000-pixel LCD viewfinder.

On the rear, menus are navigated by four direction buttons and a selection button - one of the simplest and most effective designs on test. Another dial switches between shoot, play and setup modes, and there are separate macro and flash buttons for quick access to these functions.

Unfortunately for Toshiba, we can level exactly the same criticisms at the PDR-3310 as for the Finecam S4. Without a shutter priority mode or full manual settings, it's difficult to take shots of moving subjects - the camera's automatic mode always seems to select a slower shutter speed than is required. Considering the PDR-3310 claims to have a fastest shutter speed of 1/2,000 second, it's a shame you can't force the camera to use it.

Another problem we found in testing was that the power and shutter buttons (both round push buttons) are too close together. Several times we switched the camera off instead of taking a picture.

Like the Kyocera, a 16MB SD card is included and this can store around seven shots at highest resolution. Again, there's no support for TIFF files or RAW CCD grabs. The movie mode is also identical, allowing AVI files to be shot up to 15 seconds long, but with no audio.

Image quality was hard to tell apart from the Finecam S4 - the lower resolution CCD doesn't make a huge difference to the resulting images. This is generally good news for Toshiba, as the S4 produced great images - when in focus, that is. Highlights include neutral colours outdoors, excellent indoor colours and good flash performance. In macro mode, the Toshiba was able to capture images measuring just 34 x 26mm - exactly the same as the Kyocera.

Playing back images to check for focus is frustrating as you can only zoom by 2x, but the camera is very quick in playback mode, as well as in general shooting. The start-up time of five seconds is rather tardy though.

There isn't much to choose between the Toshiba and the Kyocera, but unless the 3310's price drops there's no reason to choose the Toshiba. And bear in mind that you could buy the fully manual Olympus C-4000Zoom for just £3 more.