Digital Cameras, 6-9x Zoom

Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZX1

The 12.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-ZX1 offers an 8x super-wideangle zoom in a compact body, and manages to produce clearer and sharper pictures than the majority of its rivals. It also offers solid build quality and straightforward controls. As such, buying it is almost a no-brainer

Editor's rating 9.0

Canon EOS 7D

The pro-orientated, 18-megapixel EOS 7D digital SLR has a couple of minor flaws, but they're far outweighed by all the positives. Offering tank-like build quality, class-leading resolution, excellent high-ISO performance and brilliant continuous-shooting speeds, it's a fantastic camera

User rating 8.0

Editor's rating 9.2

Olympus mju-7010

The 12-megapixel mju-7010 is a great little camera that combines a compact body with a 7x wideangle zoom. Its pictures could be crisper and other cameras have longer zoom ranges without costing more, but the mju-7010 is so slim and neat that it's hard to resist

Editor's rating 8.1

Canon PowerShot A2100 IS

The 12.1-megapixel Canon PowerShot A2100 IS combines very good photo quality with the benefits of a 6x optical zoom and optical image stabilisation. Some aspects of its performance are relatively slow, but it still represents good value for a point-and-shoot compact camera

Editor's rating 7.2

Olympus mju 7000

The 12-megapixel mju 7000 isn't going to make anyone wet their pants with excitement, but it's a capable snapper nonetheless. With a 7x zoom range, it offers serious telephoto capability in a compact body that can slip into your shirt pocket, and its pictures are good too

Editor's rating 5.7

Ricoh CX1

The 9-megapixel CX1 looks smart, produces good-quality images and offers plenty of features to get your teeth into. Its high-dynamic-range mode isn't perfect, but the CX1 offers excellent 4 frames per second full-resolution shooting, and its high-resolution LCD screen is great too

Editor's rating 7.4

Nikon Coolpix S630

The smart-looking, 12-megapixel Coolpix S630 is a technically advanced compact camera with a 7x optical zoom. Offering decent picture quality and surprisingly good definition at low ISOs, it's also very beginner-friendly, although there's plenty of features to get to grips with if you want to

Editor's rating 6.0

Canon PowerShot A2000 IS

The PowerShot A2000 IS is an uncomplicated, 10-megapixel compact that produces above-average pictures but fails to excite. With countless rivals offering more interesting features, you can't help but feel that this is the Ford Focus of digital cameras

Editor's rating 7.3

Ricoh R10

The Ricoh R10 features cool retro styling and comes in three different colours. This 10-megapixel digital camera follows in the Ricoh tradition -- it's classy and compact, offers a great user experience and is packed with features. The R10 is so versatile and adjustable that you'll love diving in and switching things around

User rating 6.0

Editor's rating 7.9

Olympus mju 1010

Another off the mju production line from Olympus, the compact 10-megapixel 1010 is slim and sleek, with good picture quality and reliable focus and exposure. The CCD-shift stabilisation works well -- this is particularly important with its impressive 7x optical zoom. Face detection is effective too, particularly with full-face portraits

Editor's rating 7.9

Ricoh R8

With the Caplio R7 rating as one of our favourite point-and-shoots of last year, the Ricoh R8 has a lot to live up to -- and it does. While you don't have many manual controls, this retro-style compact is feature rich and certainly tweakable, appealing to both novices and professionals

Editor's rating 8.2

Pentax Optio Z10

It's not easy for a camera company to make a small, good-looking camera that takes nice pictures. With its sliding lens cover design, the Pentax Optio Z10 favours a long 7x optical zoom lens and nice image quality -- all excellent qualities for a pocketable compact camera

Editor's rating 7.0

Samsung L77

For a simple, pocket-friendly point-and-shoot camera, try Samsung's new L77 compact. Its powerful lens stays completely inside the camera, allowing the camera to stay nice and slim while you're shooting. It handles most of the exposure controls manually so you don't have to. Talk about a hidden camera

Editor's rating 6.4

Ricoh Caplio R7

The Ricoh Caplio R7 is a camera that takes charge. Available in orange, silver and black flavours, this camera boasts a mini joystick plus the standard clickpad to navigate settings. Changing the white balance and exposure has never been easier and that certainly shows a bit of design gumption

User rating 3.8

Editor's rating 8.0

Canon PowerShot A650 IS

The Canon PowerShot A650 IS proves that you don't need to invest in a dSLR to get manual options and large, detailed pictures. Featuring 12 megapixels and a range of shooting modes, the A650 IS gives you a great opportunity to control your images than most compact cameras

Editor's rating 7.6

Canon PowerShot A720 IS

Canon is sticking to what works in its PowerShot A720 IS. Mostly similar to its older A710 IS sibling, it strikes a less hefty pose, but more importantly, this camera improves in the areas of face detection and autoexposure. With a complement of manual exposure controls, old is made new again

Editor's rating 7.8

Samsung NV7 OPS

The inexpensive Samsung NV7 OPS offers a 7-megapixel CCD with sensor-shift mechanical image stabilisation, a broad set of semi-manual controls and a 7x zoom lens. But it's the mini-tank design and innovative interface that make it stand out

Editor's rating 6.8

Casio Exilim EX-V7

The Casio Exilim EX-V7 is a lightweight 7.2-megapixel compact camera that packs loads of features into a small package. It attempts to combine compact form with superzoom function -- at just 25mm thick, it boasts a hefty 7x optical zoom and mechanical image stabilisation

Editor's rating 5.7

Canon PowerShot G7

Offering a 10-megapixel sensor and a 64mm LCD, the light but sturdy Canon PowerShot G7 is an attractive option for the enthusiast. While the camera is pretty fast, image quality can be mixed -- sometimes giving unpredictable results

User rating 8.5

Editor's rating 7.5

Canon PowerShot A710 IS

Canon has added image stabilisation to the latest, great value model in its A series. For average situations, the A710 IS' image quality is quite good -- most casual shooters will find that the camera is more than enough for their needs, and its versatile controls make it a nice spare camera for more advanced shooters, too

Editor's rating 7.6