Gold Digital Cameras

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1

Although its photos are fairly ordinary, the 10.2-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 is a very impressive fusion of style and technology. Among the clever features up its super-slim sleeve are its full-resolution high-speed shooting, excellent low-light mode and touchscreen interface

Editor's rating 6.8

Canon Digital IXUS 200 IS

Canon has played it safe with the Digital IXUS 200 IS, aiming for steady evolution rather than technical innovation. The result is a perfectly decent compact camera. It offers good colours and details at low ISOs, its touchscreen is effective and its 5x extra-wideangle zoom is very useful

Editor's rating 7.5

Casio Exilim EX-Z90

Casio's stuffed plenty of features into the 12.1-megapixel Exilim EX-Z90 compact camera, including a 3x zoom and an intelligent autofocus system that can work out what to focus on and how to adjust the exposure to match. The body's very neat and attractive, and it's fairly inexpensive too

User rating 9.0

Editor's rating 5.2

Samsung ST550

Its pictures are fairly ordinary, but the 12.2-megapixel ST550 is a stunningly successful exercise in interface design. With a front-mounted touchscreen that makes taking self-portraits a piece of cake, a rear-mounted touchscreen that delivers haptic feedback, and a motion-sensitive menu system, it's a joy to use

Editor's rating 8.1

Canon Digital IXUS 110 IS

The Digital IXUS 110 IS isn't the smallest compact camera on the market, but you won't find many that are better-looking. Boasting an understated design and elegant control layout, it also shoots excellent 720p videos, sports a good screen and offers useful face-detection capability

Editor's rating 7.4

Casio Exilim EX-Z1

The 10-megapixel Exilim EX-Z1 super-slim camera with 3x zoom boasts a sleek and attractive design and comes in a range of appealing colours. Its pictures won't blow your mind, but it does benefit from a widescreen LCD display, which is useful for taking reasonably high-resolution 848x480-pixel movies

Editor's rating 5.6

Pentax Optio E70

The attractive, 10-megapixel Optio E70 is an inexpensive compact camera that offers decent performance, features and image quality for the price. It doesn't offer a great deal of shooting flexibility, but the E70's simple to use and has large, easy-to-read controls, making it a good camera for beginners

Editor's rating 6.6

Samsung i85

Samsung thinks we don't just want a camera but an MP3 player, movie player, world tour guide and storage device all rolled into one. The i85 is the result: a stylish 8-megapixel compact with a 5x zoom and enough features to keep you entertained on the plane and informed when you get to where you're going

Editor's rating 6.0

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W150

The Cyber-shot DSC-W150, Sony's latest 8-megapixel ultracompact digital camera, comes in a variety of fancy colours and is packed with fun-to-use features. You can choose from ten different shooting modes and it's very easy to edit or play back images on your camera while adding effects to them

Editor's rating 7.0

Canon Digital IXUS 870 IS

The 10-megapixel IXUS 870 IS is the follow-up to the popular 860 IS, and what a worthy successor it is. It's capable of producing truly excellent pictures for a camera of its size and it has excellent components for its price, including a wide-angle lens and optical image stabilisation

Editor's rating 8.0

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700

Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T700 aims to improve your picture-sharing experience by giving you not only a well-rounded point-and-shoot camera, but also a portable digital photo album. It's able to store up to 40,000 images and you can view them on its gorgeous 89mm touchscreen

Editor's rating 8.0

Casio Exilim EX-Z100

It's hard to find fault with Casio cameras these days. The Casio Exilim EX-Z100 makes for another compact success. From its understated style and large screen to its accessible controls and useful features, this snapper is a study in what the compact camera can be

Editor's rating 8.1

Samsung i70

The multi-purpose, multimedia Samsung i70 is a stylish and capable point-and-shoot camera. It includes a video recorder, multimedia player, text viewer and voice recorder. It looks terrific, with its 76mm screen taking up the whole back, and -- crucially -- is available in a range of pretty colours

Editor's rating 6.7

Olympus mju 790 SW

The Olympus mju 790 SW is a compact that loves the active life. Waterproof and shockproof, it doesn't forsake smooth styling to be robust, and while the toughness will hit you in the pocket, Olympus hasn't skimped on photo quality or features

Editor's rating 6.6

Kodak EasyShare V803

V803's smooth curves and array of colours make it rather comely, so if you're after an inexpensive 8-megapixel compact camera in your favourite hue, it's worth a look

Editor's rating 5.8

Canon PowerShot A430

The 4-megapixel Canon PowerShot A430 is an upgraded version of the bottom-of-the-line 3-megapixel A410, which it replaces as Canon's cheap, no-frills digital camera. Despite some irritating image-quality problems, the A430 is a nice, simple point-and-shoot camera with solid performance and a decent feature set

User rating 8.0

Editor's rating 6.8