It seems like a very long time ago now that I bought this camera, and it has not only provided me with a record of fondly remembered times, but also fond memories of using the camera itself. That sentence may have been unwieldy, but this camera certainly was not - it is lightweight and has effective auto features meaning that I was able to take good photos even at arms length without sight of the screen. Additionally, the response time from off to photo ready is quick, as well as the 'shutter' action (though of course this is a compact camera with no shutter to speak of).

While the camera is effective on automatic, it does offer a few manual settings that come in very useful as well, such as a manual focus (means the camera can still be used in low light settings or to predictively focus for moving objects) and an exposure step adjuster (to make the picture a little darker to avoid burnt out highlights).

Certainly the best feature is the close up macro focus, effective up to about 3 cms from the lens, though at times you can all but press the camera against an object and it will focus. I was able to take many effective pictures using this. I would also have to say that the camera just seems to have its focal length set up at a sort of a sweet spot compositionally that makes the backgrounds to macro shots work quite dramatically - hard to describe but definitely something different to other cameras I have used.

There are some negatives, the biggest one being that the camera won't act as a mass storage device when plugged into the computer, meaning that you have to either use the provided software of have a port for the memory card (and so you can't just take this round to a friend's and view the pictures on a big screen). It does also feel a bit cheap, with buttons that offer little tactile response, and quite a small screen.

Now, things have moved on in the realm of digital compacts, so that these features that seemed amazing at the time are now fairly standard, and I couldn't really recommend this for main use (mainly because of the low resolution), however, if ever you see one lying around to pick it up and have a go, because it is simply a pleasure to take pictures with.