Labs

The µ820 has much in common with the µ780, which picked up a Best Buy award in What's New, Shopper October 2007. They share the same ultra-compact, splash-proof design and 5x zoom lens, but the 820 ups the resolution and screen size. It also omits the 780's optical image stabilisation and illuminated button icons, but costs around £25 less.

The use of slow xD cards hampers performance, with a three-second gap between shots and a continuous mode that's

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limited to short bursts of photos. Video mode records only 10 seconds at the top quality setting. The big screen and slim battery are a bad combination for battery life, and 229 shots is the lowest result in this group.

High-contrast scenes are a challenge for digital cameras, but the µ820 has an effective solution to avoid clipped highlights and lowlights. A dedicated button activates Shadow Adjustment Technology, which brightens up darker areas using digital processing. This improved photos with a bright or dark background or that combined exterior and interior views. Elsewhere, colours were equally impressive, with superb skin tones in a range of lighting conditions. Sharpness and detail weren't up to the standards of the best cameras here, but skin textures were more detailed than with Sony's cameras. Noise was never completely absent and ISO 800 shots looked smudged, but ISO 400 shots compared well with the competition.

The µ780's stabilisation and better performance are worth paying extra for, but the 820 isn't far behind.