Labs

The F20 picked up a Best Buy award seven months ago (What's New, Shopper February 2007) when it cost £135. Now at just under £99, it's the budget camera that all others must beat.

This is one of only three cameras in this group to have a metal body and come with a lithium ion battery, which avoids the hassle and expense of using AA batteries. Its curvy design is better looking than most, but at 150g it's a little heavier than most, too. The 2.5in screen's

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150,000-pixel resolution is above average in this group, and its 1600 top ISO speed is the highest here, allowing you to take photos without a flash in low light. Otherwise its features are fairly run-of-the-mill, and annoyingly it uses slow, expensive xD memory cards.

The F20 is in the middle of the pack for performance. It takes two seconds to switch on and take a photo, and there's a similar gap between shots. The auto-focus is particularly fast and, in general, the camera doesn't keep you waiting, but browsing the pictures you've taken is slow.

The quality of images taken with the F20 is a step up from all the other cameras in the group. Using the same sensor and similar image processing as the outstanding F31fd (reviewed in What's New, Shopper April 2007), it produced the most pleasing colours, the sharpest detail and the lowest noise of all the cameras here. It also made intelligent decisions over automatic settings, getting the best possible images in tricky lighting conditions. This is an excellent camera at a good price.