The P6000 is Nikon's new flagship compact, showcasing the latest technologies and offering what the company hopes to be a serious alternative to lugging around a digital SLR camera.

Certainly, with an MSRP of over £50 more expensive than its D60 digital SLR, Nikon seems to be sure that the P6000 aspires to more than its Coolpix moniker.

Not a looker

Its brick-like shell, firm buttons and heavy-duty hand grip isn't going to win any design awards, but it's designed for longevity in the hands of a semi-pro, not looks. It shares the same impeccably constructed magnesium alloy shell as Nikon's highest-end professional camera bodies.

The mode selection wheel, optical viewfinder and chunky jog dials could almost be lifted directly from a D60. Even the camera's firmware is based on Nikon's DSLR Picture Control System. In short, users of Nikon's digital SLR bodies will be right at home, and anyone choosing the P6000 as a 'way in' to SLR photography will find knowledge transfer very easy when they decide to move to a fully-fledged SLR camera.

Photo geotagging

In-camera geotagging looks set to be the 'next big thing', doing away with the time-consuming process of
manually pinning your shots to a virtual map.

The inclusion of a GPS receiver, able to pinpoint your location to within a few feet, is hailed as the P6000's finest achievement. In reality, its inclusion seems to be all but a flaky tech demo of what might be realisable in the future.

The receiver itself is pitifully weak, and even in open, interference-free areas it seemed to need at least five minutes to recognise even a single satellite, rendering it entirely useless for quick snaps. In urban areas with nearby buildings and sources of interference, it never achieved a satellite lock at all, leaving our images location-less.

Ethernet connectivity

Perhaps the quirkiest addition to the camera is its Ethernet socket, providing a quick way to back up your shots online.

Ethernet's an odd choice; a WiFi implementation would have allowed users to take advantage of free hotspots, and any possible speed increase a wired connection might offer is hampered by low broadband upload speeds.

In our tests over a 2.5Mb/sec upstream connection, a 200MB mixture of JPEG and RAW shots took nearly an hour to transfer – suggesting that backing up an 8GB SD card may prove entirely unfeasible.

Noisy images

Optically, the P6000 doesn't disappoint. The ability to control depth of field, and consequently the quality of background blur, is extremely impressive for such a small optic. Macro mode is a highlight, as is the wide view at 28mm. Sadly, the P6000's 13.5-megapixel sensor struggles to do justice to the sharp lens.

Despite a physically larger sensor than most compacts, such a tight packing of pixels has resulted in issues with chroma noise, making anything higher than ISO 400 only suitable for emergency use. ISO 6400 is, frankly, a ludicrous inclusion.

The need for speed

Finally, there's the speed issue; it's simply no match for a DSLR in terms of responsiveness. Focusing is cumbersome, and in low light rarely achieves an accurate focus lock.

Manual mode is let down by clunky navigation, requiring multiple button presses to adjust basic settings. Switching to Nikon's new NRW raw image format increases write times significantly, resulting in a wait of around ten seconds between shots.

Sadly, these issues all serve as nails in the P6000's coffin – Nikon has concentrated far too much on high technology and neglected the most basic of requirements in the process. All its target audience wants is a low-noise, responsive compact that comes close to a DSLR in image quality yet slips neatly in a jacket pocket.

If the P6000 is Nikon's attempt to answer this call, it's got a fair way to go yet.