Olympus FE210

The Olympus FE-210 sits bang in the middle of the entry-level FE range of cameras, so it’s actually not the cheapest Olympus camera that you can currently buy. With a street price of just £79, it is certainly affordable though.

Olympus has put a lot of time and energy into their budget range, particularly on the design side, and you can certainly see this in the FE-210, which is easily the best-looking camera on test. The large curved handgrip makes the camera very easy to pick up and hold, and it also somehow feels smaller than it actually is!

Olympus has implemented what it calls a ‘one button, one function’ design, which simply means that each button only performs one specific function for the sake of simplicity. Of course, the point-and-shoot nature of this entry-level camera helps to make this design approach work, but there’s no denying that the FE-210 is an extremely intuitive camera that most people will be able to pick up and use within a matter of minutes. The menu system uses a friendly icon-based interface that’s similarly quick to become accustomed to. There’s even an extensive Help system that provides handy tips on common shooting situations. In terms of specification, the Olympus FE-210 is comparable to the Pentax E30. It offers a seven-megapixel sensor that provides enough resolution for good images up to 15 x 10 inches in size, plus a large and bright 2.5-inch LCD screen that isn’t too grainy. The 3x zoom lens is disappointingly slow though, reaching a maximum aperture of f5.9 at the telephoto end, slower even than the Canon’s 4x lens. Indeed, performance is the main area in which this camera struggles. The start-up time and image playback are both painfully slow, making it difficult to take images and then show them off to friends and family. There’s also a brief blackout of the LCD screen between taking photos and

the focusing system is hesitant in less-than-ideal lighting conditions.

The FE-210 is an intuitive camera in terms of its design, but quite the opposite in performance, which is a real shame as the image quality is also very good. Photos are well-exposed in the majority of situations, with bright punchy colours that will appeal to

the beginner and just a slight tendency to make the subject warmer than it actually is.

The 7 megapixel sensor provides bags of detail and image noise isn’t an issue until you go above ISO 400. The lens loses some degree of sharpness in the corners of the image, but all in all we’d say that the Olympus FE-210 is nearly on a par with the Canon A460 in terms of image quality.

This is a stylish camera that looks and feels a lot more expensive than it is. It takes great-looking photos, but ultimately the sluggish performance means this isn’t quite the fantastic bargain that it first appears to be.