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Carolyn Ong

Product: Casio QV-R51
Price: Casio says the camera will retail for less than $3,000
Pros: Good value for the features offered
Cons: Narrow viewfinder, display is big but flickers

The Casio QV-R51 is so new even the big digital camera websites have not heard of it yet. Hong Kong is the first place it has been launched outside Japan.
A month ago, I raved about the Casio QV-R40, the R51's predecessor, priced at just $2,460. 
The R51 improves on the R40 with extended battery life, an impressive 3x optical zoom and a much larger display at two inches.
The TFT display is one of the camera's highlights, and gives the user a wide view of pictures.

Like its predecessor, the 200g five-megapixel R51 is   compact and has a textured metal body with a high-quality finish. There are  lighter and slimmer cameras on the market, but not with the same set of features. 

On the top, the QV-R51 has a power button mounted flush with the surface, and a shutter release with a spring-loaded zoom control around it. The zoom reacts   quickly to the lightest pressure. From wide angle to telephoto, it takes just over a second to move through its full range. 
 Like many other digital cameras, the zoom control  provides additional functions when the camera is in playback mode. 
The telephoto side magnifies an image by four times, and the wide-angle side displays thumbnails with an index screen composed of nine images. You can also choose images according to dates. Pushing the zoom control a second time from the thumbnails view displays a calendar, which allows you to select images based on the date they were taken. I found this particularly useful. 
Navigation of the menus is assured using the large four-direction control below the 'menu' button. A button at the centre labelled 'set' is used to 'enter' a selection. 
An entry-level digital camera, the R51 has limited manual functions. It is best suited for people who want to take above-average pictures simply by pressing a button. 



Point-and-shoot's zoom is lightning fast off the trigger