Casio - EX-S3 digital camera Review

To the Point

The Casio Exilim EX-S3 digital camera is a great starter camera or one for a teenager. Otherwise I would recommend others.

A Closer View

I’ve been using this camera for a couple of weeks. My daughter got a Sony Cybershot DS-T9. I was tired of hanging the Fuji (reviewed) around my neck so I thought I’d try the Casio out before our summer trip.

It’s tiny measuring 3.5 x 2.4 x 0.5 (thick) inches and very light at 2.5 ounces. It is a 3.2 megapixal camera with a large 2 inch LCD screen.

It’s easy to use and has some decent features. It is discontinued but you can find it for what I consider a high price of around $180.00.

It has 10MB of built-in memory. Some features include a movie mode, a best shot mode where a sample scene shows up, a built in flash and red-eye reduction.

What I don’t like about the camera:

It has a rechargeable cradle. That’s fine. Other more expensive Casios work the same way; however on this one the battery can’t be taken out. This means that I would have to rely on the cradle 100% of the time. Although I read that I could take hundreds of pictures on one charge if we are without electricity while traveling (i.e. a campground without hook ups) I won’t be able to take pictures!

I don’t like the LCD. In sunlight it wasn’t as easy for me to use as I would have liked.

It has no optical zoom. I can be told until the moon turns blue that I can crop the pictures, etc. etc. etc. after I take them or when they are on my computer screen but that just doesn’t work for me. If I want to get a close up of a bird in a tree I want that optical zoom.

I wasn’t happy with the quality of pictures that got downloaded to my daughter’s computer. I never installed the software just in case.

It feels like a toy to me. People have suggested using it in addition to a more substantial camera but I already promised my Fuji to my younger daughter. So – after reading a review write here on Viewpoints my husband ordered us a Casio with 7.2 mexapixals and 3x optical zoom.

Jo’s Viewpoint

I like it but not for me!

I'm recommending it with the caveats noted.

My Fuji camera review can be found here

http://www.viewpoints.com/review/read/911aad98-f347-11db-ae9b-00188b1b53f7