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Carolyn Ong

Product: Casio QV-5700
Price: HK$4,880
Pros: Takes good pictures and good quality video. Easy to operate
Cons: Short battery life

When it comes to digital cameras, megapixels are not everything, and this is certainly true for the Casio QV-5700.

Casio claims it is a five-megapixel camera, though it actually uses a 4.9 megapixel CCD from Canon.

Not that I would fault Casio for rounding off to the higher figure because there is no real difference in image quality.

The Casio gives sharp images and good 30-second video clips but these features and image quality are equivalent to many four-megapixel cameras I have tested.

Writing to CompactFlash is slow at the highest resolution setting even when using a CompactFlash Ultra card, which has a faster data transfer rate than regular CF. The camera has no on-board storage and comes bundled with a measly 16 megabyte CF card.

It is easy to operate and you do not need to study the manual to figure out how to use the camera.

However, the power-on switch cannot be locked in position, which means often it gets switched on accidentally, especially when you leave it sliding around in a bigger bag.

I have inadvertantly drained the batteries many times because of this and, in the end, I resorted to taping down the button to secure it in the 'off' position.

The camera has a 3x optical zoom, which does not work very well when taking close-up shots, even when using the Portrait setting. Pictures tend to come out hazy because the focus is slightly out.

Pictures taken indoors do not come out very well if lighting is poor, though this is true for many digital cameras. The built-in flash is inadequate.

What bothered me most about the Casio QV-5700 was the battery life. It does not use long-lasting lithium-ion batteries. Instead, it uses AA batteries, which run out of juice very quickly. The model I reviewed did not come with rechargable AA batteries so I had to keep running to the shops every couple of days to get Duracells.

Transferring the pictures to your laptop is a breeze using a USB connector though you could also use a CF card adapter to transfer images to your laptop. If I were not reviewing the camera, I would not bother installing the bundled software.



Simple snapper has too little juice