Digicam Roundup: $150

Final Words

In almost every test of our review, we discovered the Fuji FinePix A330 to offer the best performance of the group. In terms of speed, it has a fast startup time and very little shutter lag. Although the Shot to Shot w/Flash times are rather slow, without the flash, it is able to shoot the fastest of the bunch without filling its buffer. It proved to have the highest overall resolution and longest battery life.

In comparison, both the Kodak CX7330 and Olympus D-540 were slow in starting up. Although the Kodak camera can nearly keep up with the Fuji A330 from Shot to Shot, it starts to drag after 3 consecutive frames. In addition, although the Kodak and Olympus cameras have the advantage of a continuous drive mode, the benefits are questionable considering the long buffer clearing times. The Kodak CX7330 has a couple of advantages over the other cameras. For example, its Auto WB setting is actually pretty accurate. Also, the CX7330 is the only camera from this group that can record audio with its video clips.

The Olympus camera is absolutely horrendous in basically all the timing tests. The fact that it takes over 9 seconds between shots without the flash is obscene. When the flash is used, waiting 17 seconds between shots is also unacceptable. We were also disappointed with its shutter lag (with auto-focus) performance. When the camera is pre-focused, the lag isn't too bad. However, when auto-focusing is added to the equation, the camera really takes a while locking focus and shooting. There are some good things about the D-540. The movie mode is unlimited and allows use of the optical zoom, white balance, and exposure compensation. Also, the D-540 can take macro pictures as close as 0.8 in. from the lens.

The most important aspect of a digital camera review is obviously image quality. We were surprised to find that despite the differences in our other tests, all three cameras were able to produce pretty good looking pictures. All three cameras consistently took pictures that were well-exposed and well-saturated. The differences between the cameras are subtle, but important. For example, upon close inspection, we discovered that both the Kodak CX7330 and the Olympus D-540 used high levels of in-camera sharpening. This results in the appearance of jaggies along fine lines. In the case of the Kodak camera, we also found very visible JPEG artifacts - evidence of over-compression. Even at the highest quality setting, the Kodak CX7330 over-compresses its images in an attempt to lower the file sizes. In contrast to both the jaggy and over-compression issues, we found the Fuji A330 to produce smooth and detailed images.

Overall, we chose the Fuji FinePix A330 over the Kodak and Olympus cameras because of a combination of its speed and image quality performances. Our second choice would probably be the Kodak CX7330 because, despite its JPEG artifacts and jaggies, the camera is much faster than the Olympus. The image quality of these entry-level digicams is getting very impressive. For only $150, it is now possible to buy a digital camera and easily make beautiful 8x10 prints from the images.

Fuji FinePix A330
Pros	Cons
Fast startup time Bright and colorful daylight pictures High resolution Very little shutter lag Smooth, but detailed, images Outstanding battery life	Slow Shot to Shot w/Flash time No continuous drive Limited video clip duration Mediocre auto WB in tungsten light

Kodak EasyShare CX7330
Pros	Cons
Fast shot to shot w/flash time Accurate Auto WB in tungsten light Video clips are unlimited and w/sound Decent battery life	Slow startup time Below-average resolution Relatively slow lag time (w/auto-focus) Jaggies (over-sharpening) JPEG artifacts from high compression

Olympus D-540
Pros	Cons
Superb Super Macro mode Decent resolution Video clips have unlimited duration Video mode allows use of optical zoom Decent battery life	Very slow startup time Very slow shot to shot w/flash time Poor Auto WB in tungsten light Very slow lag time (w/auto-focus) Jaggies (over-sharpening) No TV-out

Thanks again to Newegg.com for loaning us the Kodak EasyShare CX7330.