Nikon Coolpix S600

Nikon Coolpix S600
Slow speed, controls bog down sleek camera

THE $299.95 NIKON COOLPIX S600 is a slow 10-megapixel point-and-shoot (with a 4x optical zoom) that suffers from a difficult-to-use interface. You will spend most of your initial time with this camera either trying to navigate the controls or studying the instruction manual to figure out where everything is. On the plus side, it's an attractive and easy-to-hold model that produces some nice images under the right conditions.
Start-up time is short-just nil 0.7 seconds. (Nikon clams it has the fastest start-up speed in its class) But the shutter lag time is slow at 2.8 seconds, and shot-to-shot will set you back 3.2 seconds, or 4.7 seconds with flash. Battery life is decent-but not spectacular-at 190 shots per charge.
The S600 took some nice outdoor photos, producing clear images with accurate color representation. Indoors, however, photos tend to come out a bit grainy and blurry, especially at higher ISO settings.
Pressing a menu button lets you change settings on things such as white balance and ISO sensitivity. The S600's easy-to-control scroll wheel is a nice feature, especially for browsing through photos quickly. It also calls up a virtual mode dial to cycle through setup, movie, audio recording, program exposure, a high-ISO auto, and regular auto-shooting modes.
But this dial-and the scroll wheel-could have been put to better use with shortcuts to more frequently used features. It takes multiple steps to do what takes only one step on most cameras. It takes five clicks, for instance, to select one of the 14 scene modes. -Jonathan Rougeot.
source: Computer Shopper September 2008.
www.nikon.com