Pentax Optio E30 review

You have the choice between a wide or narrow auto-focussing area. The wider angle occasionally hopped to the wrong part of the picture, so it's worth sticking with the reasonably quick narrow option.

The zoom felt somewhat jumpy, and the jittery onscreen slider feels as though it's leaping about in increments somewhat disconnected from the motion of the actual zoom. These are minor quibbles, however, on a camera that is above all quick and convenient to use.

Use of AA batteries makes the E30 a bulky affair, but they're convenient when you're on the go

Battery life is reasonable. When we filled 2GB of memory with more than 1,200 images in green mode (without flash), the battery indicator showed no bars and was flashing red, but had yet to pack in completely.

Conclusion
Picture quality is fine for the Web and small prints, but middling in low light. A lack of decent features means the Pentax Optio E30 doesn't have much of an edge over similarly priced cameras such as the Olympus FE-210 or the more expensive Canon PowerShot A540, both of which also run on AA batteries.

The budget price, perky interface and cheerfully childlish feature set make the E30 worth considering for younger shutterbugs, though.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide