Fuji DX-5

Bowing to demands for user friendliness, the Fuji DX-5 greets you with a beep and a 'Hi' when you turn it on. It's smaller and neater than its predecessor the DS-7, but drops the LCD screen for an optical viewfinder and adds a flash. Memory is taken care of by a 2Mb SmartMedia card, the wafer thin removable storage which makes an After Eight mint look obese. This is enough for 30 images in normal mode and 22 in fine, but as it's removable you can buy more for limitless storage. The resolution is the same for both modes - 640 x 480 pixels - but the compression ratio drops from 11:1 to 8:1 for fine images. We also found that it was possible to insert the SmartMedia card the wrong way round; the guidance symbol is a little small.

The DX-5 is turned on via a spring-return switch. A simple flick pops up the flash, but only a firm one-second tug brings power. This is confusing at first, but prevents you from accidentally powering up the camera when you didn't intend to. The other electronic controls are accessed from a row of four buttons, with a status LCD telling you what you've selected. The Erase button chooses the deletion technique: the last picture taken, all the pictures or by formatting the SmartMedia card. It's used in conjunction with the Enter button at the other end of the row. The middle two buttons switch between image modes and cycle the flash between auto, always on, always off and red-eye settings. The only other control on the camera widens the lens aperture for low lighting, which the camera will tell you to do when it senses insufficient light. This is handy as the Fuji has an ISO rating of just 150.

A serial cable is provided for transferring your images to a PC, or you can purchase the optional PC Card SmartMedia adaptor. The serial link uses a TWAIN driver to communicate with the camera. PictureWorks PhotoEnhancer is included for minimal retouching of your photos. On the quality front, the DX-5 is slightly below average, excelling neither in the detail of its image nor the fidelity of its colour reproduction. This puts it in the middle of its 640 x 480 peers.

If you're not intending to publish your photographs in a magazine, quality is sufficient. It's good enough for a corporate newsletter or Web page. Despite the lack of an LCD and the average picture quality, the Fuji represents great value for money.