Digital camera manufacturers have yet to produce a must-have alternative to an SLR for pros. Compact cameras tend to be almost entirely focused on consumers, emphasising gimmicks and ease of use rather than manual controls and ultimate image quality

People shopping for a point-and-click compact don't usually put Wi-Fi functionality that high on their wish list, but if you're looking for a camera that can beam photos straight to Nikon's community photo site, here it is.

Apart from a still modest and pocket-friendly depth of 23mm, Casio's newest camera maintains the Exilim tradition of being roughly the same size as a credit card. Shoehorned into these modest dimensions is a mighty 12.1MP sensor

We've all seen a story about a guy who has spent the last five years in his garage squashing the engine from a fighter jet into a Mini. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100 is a bit like that. Under its hood you'll find a pumping 12MP sensor

The looks are stunning, that's for sure. The X725 is available in red, black, silver or white, boasts a beautiful stainless steel casing and makes you wonder just how much thinner compact cameras can get

When is an SLR not an SLR? When it's a Canon S5. The S5 certainly lookslike one with its large lens, chunky handgrip, hotshoe for externalflash and enough switches and dials to start a science experiment

From Apple's eagerly awaited iPhone to an entire generation of satnavs, touchscreens are all the rage. They promise intuitive access tofeatures and an end to complex menus. But are they suited to cameras?

It could be argued that there's less need for bridge cameras now that digital SLRs are so reasonably priced. But when you can pick up a 7MP, 10x zoom compact for less than the price of most standalone flashguns, it's easy to see why they're still around

The big noise (pardon the pun) in compact cameras at the moment is high ISO, which in plain English means the ability to avoid using flash in low-light settings. Nikon's boxy but stylish S500 is another high-ISO shooter, going up to ISO 2000

This 7.2-megapixel snapper weighs in at a handy 130g and comes with a 3x optical zoom and a bright 2.5-inch LED screen. With 10 modes to choose from, the controls on the back are clear and easy to access

The DSC-T100 doesn't simply stand out as expensive for such a slimline camera, it also stands out courtesy of its amazing 8-megapixel rating. The 3-inch viewfinder is a great feature too. Slide back the lens cover and it instantly kicks to life

With manufacturers falling over themselves to differentiate their compacts from the alternatives, Ricoh's update of the R5, the R6, is cumbersomely described as 'the world's thinnest camera with a 28mm wide angle, 7.1x optical zoom lens'

The rise of the camera phone has made shooting from the hip, over yourmate'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 relentless march of digital technology means that new features are arriving almost daily - so how do you decide which are worth pursuing? You could do worse than simply wait and see which ones Canon decides to include in its Ixus range

Merely having a long zoom isn't enough for a camera to succeed these days - big lenses have to be squeezed into stylish packages to raisethe pulses of increasingly fussy consumers

When Canon decided to update its top-of-the-range compact with the PowerShot G7, arch rival Nikon must have started to worry. After all, a decent choice of high-end compacts has been distinctly lacking from Nikon's line-up - until the CoolPix P5000

Canon Digital Ixus 70 review: To celebrate ten years since the first Ixus appeared, Canoncommissioned ten, special, diamond-encrusted models of what has becomethe world's most iconic camera sub-brand

FujiFilm's Z5fd is a good-quality, 6.3-megapixel digital compact withsome caveats. Its main asset is its super-slim size, which you hardlynotice in your pocket. Some features have been lost to make the camera

Not many camera manufacturers would have the temerity to boast how few features their camera has, but that's exactly what Olympus has done with the new FE-250 - the top model in its FE (fun and easy) range of digital compacts

There's no shortage of wannabe snappers , so when this latest instalment of the Finepix range hovered into view, there were no shortage of journos who wanted to review it. None of them, however, sit as close to the kit cupboard as me

Olympus' latest super-zoom packs a massive 18x zoom range that goes from a wide 28mm to an amazing paparazzi-busting 504mm equivalent, and all with a full spread of manual controls

Within an hour of picking up the 770SW it had been dropped on concrete, submerged in water, jumped on and then popped in the freezer. And it still came out very much alive and kicking

The problem with many of today's compact digital cameras is the size of the sensor chips that are used in them. Most compacts use a minuscule 1/2.5-inch CCD that's so small even the best lenses struggle to record enough detail

The current crop of models in Canon's Ixus range may look very similar, but they aren't all created equal. Take the 850 IS, for example... it has all the good looks of its stable mates but comes with a 7-megapixel sensor and a generously wide angle lens

We recently looked at Fuji's F31fd - a digital compact that takes great low-light shots, thanks to Fuji's new Real Photo Processor II and Super CCD HR V1. The S6500fd has the same processor and CCD, but is housed in a lightweight DSLR body