Ricoh Caplio G3

A table of all the full digital images taken with the cameras

Like the Olympus C-350, the Caplio G3 costs well under ï200. The cheap-looking plastic body gives the game away, and build quality isn't quite up to the standard of the Camedia. In fact, the G3 was showing evidence of wear after only a few days of use. But the main specifications are almost identical: a 3x optical zoom and a 3.34-megapixel CCD, with a power source of two AA batteries.

The Ricoh is 16mm longer than the Olympus, though, making it less pocketable. A dial on top lets you switch between playback and the four main shooting modes: auto, scene, movie and sound. Four direction buttons and a 1.6in LCD make the rear look similar to the C-350, but with only 80,000 pixels it's difficult to check that images are in focus.

Where Ricoh scores against Olympus is that the G3 can record audio with movies and has a more usable 1,280 x 960 mid-resolution. It also allows manual ISO selection, has a faster continuous drive, a time-lapse shooting option and is the only camera on test capable of exposure and white balance bracketing.

But, the Caplio only has 8MB of memory, good for just five full-resolution images, against Olympus' 16MB. There's an SD/MMC card slot, but 8MB is inexcusable in a 3-megapixel camera. The startup time of 2.6 seconds is a bonus, though, and Ricoh claims a shutter response of just 0.14 seconds. The G3 felt fast in use, but the LCD wasn't particularly quick to refresh.

Image quality, sadly, was the worst we saw. The main issue was undersaturated colours indoors and outdoors. Noise was also a problem, while detail capture wasn't up to the level we'd expect from this lens and CCD combination. The portrait shot showed up these flaws and they can't all be corrected in any photo-editing suites. Resolution in the BT Tower shot was reasonable, but noise was again noticeable.

One highlight was the macro test, where the G3 captured a much smaller area than the Olympus of 37 x 28mm. Plus, barrel distortion was barely noticeable. But outdoor shots, including the portrait shot, were consistently underexposed while any shots with flash were overexposed and highlights burnt out.

Since xD-Picture Cards cost roughly the same as SD cards, investing in this new technology isn't any more expensive, and makes the Olympus the obvious budget choice over the Ricoh.

A table of all the full digital images taken with the cameras