Nikon Coolpix S210 review

An inexpensive, superslim pocket camera in the entry-level point-and-shoot class, the 8Mp Nikon Coolpix S210 isn't short on good looks.

The Nikon Coolpix S210 is available in an array of understated brushed-metallic colours. Priced at around £150, this 0.7in-wide camera fits easily in the palm of your hand. It lacks a viewfinder but devotes about two-thirds of its back to a bright, 2.5in-diagonal LCD, leaving enough space for a fairly secure grip.

The 3x optical zoom Nikon Coolpix S210 has a small, molded ridge on its back, which helps the camera rest comfortably in your hand. Unfortunately, this design left our forefingers positioned squarely over the on/off button, meaning that we frequently turned off the camera instead of pressing the nearby shutter.

Once we got past that glitch, however, we found the layout and labelling of the remaining buttons quite simple. The zoom bar is conveniently located near the Nikon Coolpix S210's shutter, and the function buttons and toggle button are arrayed beneath it. The toggle button controls EV+/-, the self-timer, the macro, and the flash.

Surrounding the toggle button are four dedicated buttons for the Nikon Coolpix S210's menu, modes, photo deletion, and stored photo viewing.

Like many other Nikon point-and-shoots, the Nikon Coolpix S210 was extremely easy to use, even without reading the manual. Reaching some settings, such as video and scene modes, took a few button presses, however, which may slow users down a bit.

A dedicated video button would have been nice. As for scene modes, the Nikon Coolpix S210 has an array of the usual suspects: portraits, landscape, party, sports, macro, and fireworks. The noteworthy addition is its handy panorama assist mode. Backlight mode was quite effective, too, once we knew that we needed a bit of fill flash (for example, to capture a shot of a black cat lying in the sun) that auto mode wasn't quite smart enough to provide.

The menu system holds autofocus mode settings including center, automatic, face priority, and spot. The Nikon Coolpix S210 also offers a burst mode that performs fairly well, along with a neat feature that fires off 16 consecutive shots and places them in a single frame - a fun novelty for sports and motion tracking.

The Nikon Coolpix S210 has a feature called Best Shot Selector. This cranks out 10 shots while you hold down the trigger, and then saves the sharpest frame that you've recorded. Other cool features include an interval timer that you can use to capture a sequence of images at a preselected rate, and a time-lapse movie function - also with several timing options.

In the time-lapse mode, you can leave the Nikon Coolpix S210 trained on your windowsill and watch seedlings sprout. Videos made with the Coolpix were generally satisfactory, though the focus was a bit shaky, even in broad daylight. We appreciated having the option to zoom while filming, a feature absent in many cameras.

Nikon's Electronic VR Image Stabilization compensates somewhat for the Nikon Coolpix S210's susceptibility to shake and blur, but the setting produced rather poor results in my tests. Because the camera doesn't provide optical image stabilisation - unlike, for example, its older sibling, the Coolpix S500 - the results looked as though the camera had simply applied a sharpening filter to the images, ham-handedly oversharpening them.

NEXT PAGE: image quality, battery life and our frustrations

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Total reviews: 4,313

• www.nikon.co.uk
• 0845 450 0155
• Nikon
• £179 inc VAT

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