Nikon Coolpix S210 review

Performance
Everything works, but it's hard to find much else to say about the S210. Colour and exposure are well balanced, white balance is as reliable as any compact and focusing is quick.

For a camera so light on features, there are a decent number of burst modes. Standard continuous mode captures around 29 images in about 22 seconds before slowing. That's an actually creditable burst rate of 0.8 frames per second. From that point, the S210 kept snapping at a haphazard rate for roughly another 20 seconds, but with brief pauses to buffer occasional images.

The plasticky buttons of the Nikon Coolpix S210 are laid out in the standard pattern, but the functions of the mode and menu buttons are a little confusing

A best shot selector mode picks the sharpest image from a burst of frames, which works fine, but we found it more useful to select our own favourite frame from the many taken. That's one of the fundamentals of digital photography, after all. The remaining burst modes are an interval timer and an 8-second burst of 16 shots at 5-megapixel resolution.

Battery life is also pretty good -- not that we had any idea of how much charge we had left as there's no onscreen battery indicator. Unforgivable.

Conclusion
There's nothing actually wrong with the Nikon Coolpix S210, by any means. A year or two ago it may have been hailed as a triumph of compact camera engineering. Here and now, cameras like the near-identical-looking yet much thinner Casio Exilim EX-S10 are redefining how much manufacturers can cram into small, stylish compacts, and the Coolpix range is being left behind. It does exactly what it says on the tin, being a budget, pocketable camera that takes reasonable photographs, but this camera clearly needs an injection of heroism.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday