The rise of the camera phone has made shooting from the hip, over your mate's shoulder, or in the back of the cab on the way home from the pub, as easy as sliding open the lens cover.

The latest generation of digital compacts are following suit. In recent months, we've seen flat-fronted, pocket models in Sony's T100 and HP's R837 that are activated by sliding open the lens cover, and Casio's look-a-like 7-megapixel EX-V7 is almost identical.

Like its competitors, Casio has managed to cram a vertically stacked zoom lens within a slender body not much larger than a credit card, but here it betters both HP and Sony with a 7x focal range and a casing that's just 20.8mm at its narrowest point.

In fact, it's currently the world's slimmest camera to feature such a zoom specification, and at no point does the lens stand proud of the body.

With the chewing gum pack-sized rechargeable lithium-ion battery inserted at the base of the camera (a compartment shared with a SD slot), the Exilim feels reassuringly weighty in the palm.

Build quality - a mix of mainly metal and plastic - is higher than most in this price bracket. While styling isn't as minimal as Sony's T100, it comes close.

The rear is dominated by a 2.5-inch LCD screen that displays some ghosting when used in low light, but which is otherwise perfectly functional with enough resolution for checking manual focus fairly accurately.

Sliding doors

Sliding open the lens cover reveals a lens with a flash alarmingly located directly above, plus stereo microphone and AF illuminator window directly below.

The EX-V7 powers up for the first shot in around a second. The large lozenge-shaped shutter release button that sits alone atop the camera is a bit too springy to the touch - it's too easy to fire off a shot when you just meant to give it an exploratory prod.

Happily, the EX-V7 is quick to determine focus and exposure and image capture is nigh on instantaneous, with a wait of only a second or so for a full-resolution, fine-quality shot to be committed to memory.

With your finger hovering over the shutter release button, the vertically arranged slider for the zoom falls ergonomically under the thumb, with a raised centre section providing just enough purchase.