Fujifilm FinePix Z20fd review

Typical price: £100

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What is it: Colourful 10-megapixel point-and-shoot

What we think: Kids deserve better than this cheap but impractical snapper

Fujifilm FinePix Z20fd Review

Reviewed by: Rich Trenholm

Reviewed on: 28 May 2008

Performance
On the plus side, we didn't see much purple fringing or distortion. Sadly, that's about all the good things we have to say about the Z20's performance. Wading through menus to tweak even the most basic shooting option wasn't much fun either.

Low light performance is one of Fujifilm's strongest points, but the Z20 doesn't have the lens or the sensor to deliver great pictures. Just about every scene mode boosts the ISO speed at the least excuse. Noise is present in images as low as ISO 200, while any higher than 800 is just bad for your eyes. Natural and flash mode is a good idea, capturing an image with and without flash, but in reality you end up with one horribly noisy image and 1 second-long gap between the two puts paid to any ideas of combining the two images at a later stage.

This crop from an image taken at maximum ISO 1,600 shows how gritty pictures are even when taken in decent lighting

Continuous shooting mode is woeful, capturing an image every 3 seconds in long period burst mode. You'll probably never find out how long that period is because, like us, you'll probably get fed up of the arthritic snapping that apparently refocuses between every shot. Final 3, which saves the last 3 shots no matter how long you hold the shutter, manages 1fps, but we rarely have cause to use this type of mode and 3 shots isn't really enough.

Battery life is okay, but would probably have been better if the faceplate didn't keep opening in our pocket.

Conclusion
It's cheap and it's colourful -- but so is Pick'n'Mix, and you wouldn't want that for every meal. If the representative of Generation Z in your life has their heart set on it, it won't ruin their lives, but we struggle to find anything exciting about the Fujifilm FinePix Z20fd.

There isn't a great deal of choice at this price point, but we'd suggest either the stylishly slim Casio Exilim EX-S10 or go for the novelty of a touchscreen with the gorgeous Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T70.

Edited by Shannon Doubleday