Not much bigger than a pack of cards, and not much heavier, this ultra-compact five megapixel the KonicaMinolta Dimage X50 camera is a winner in my book.

I didn’t need the manual to set the time and date and to view and delete my first few test shots. Playback and menu controls are to the right of the viewfinder on the back and it’s obvious what most buttons do. A USB cable is included so you can view your photos on your PC, though I prefer an SD card reader.

The X50 turns on via a slider at the front, which means it’s difficult to switch it on accidentally. The two-inch display screen makes it easy to see your picture, though it is perhaps not as sharp as on some cameras. Novices will appreciate the little brackets on screen that frame the centre of your shot (pros: you can turn this off via a button on the back).

The Dimage X50 has automatic flash and red-eye reduction and three shooting modes – simple, video (with sound and output in PAL or NTSC) and automatic digital subject selection: this chooses from cloudy, sports, landscape or sunset. You can also record audio notes with photos.

The internal zoom makes a change – when you press the zoom control buttons on the top right, you hear a sound but unless you look at the viewfinder you won’t realise that you’ve zoomed in or out. The 2.8x optical zoom is where you make the trade-off for the X50’s compact size - it’s a bit on the low side, in my opinion, but acceptable in view of the other features you’re getting.

With this camera, there’s virtually no shutter lag - that’s the time the camera takes to be ready between shots or after the screen powers down. It was ready to go again almost instantly after shooting and immediately after powering up.

I’ve been using it for just over a week and it’s coped well with pictures taken indoors and out, in daylight and at night, in motion and still. While the professional snapper is bound to have a few gripes, the average user will find the Dimage X50 a good point and shoot digital camera.