A review of the Olympus FE-200 Digital Camera
Olympus have introduced the FE-200 which is the latest in the FE series with a spectacular 5x lens and 6 mega pixels we expected great things. It does have one or two great features but unfortunately the bad out-weigh the good and it's older brothers seem to have inherited the better characteristics. Design |
| The Olympus FE-200 is a very cool and trendy looking digital camera with a gorgeous 5x optical zoom chrome lens which is probably its best feature. It has a matte silver finish which is particularly scratch resistant and there is a shiny chrome finger grip on the right side. The flash is located just above the grip. On top there is the shutter release button and power button leaving most functions to the rear, which is dominated by the 2.5” LCD screen. Next to the screen is two zoom buttons a mode dial which slightly hangs over the edge of the camera body so that it can be rotated easily with the thumb. Below the dial is the menu panel which is a circle of options with the OK button in the middle, slightly small than we would like and is a bit difficult to use. At the bottom is a menu button and delete button. The Olympus FE-200 feels very solid and metal clad and with a weight of 155g is a bit on the heavy side without its battery or card inserted. The dimensions are 97.5mm (w) x 59mm (h) x 27mm (d) so it is competitively compact and will fit into almost any pocket or clutch bag with ease. |
| Features |
| The Olympus FE-200 has a cool and effective 6 mega pixels, but best things first it boasts a 5x optical zoom lens which is the equivalent to 28-140mm on a 35mm camera. The lens is a great plus to this camera and stretches from wide-angle to telephoto so panoramic landscapes and long distance or close up shots are no problem for the user. There are not many digital compact cameras with the capability of taking such a wide range of distance photos and to fit the high quality lens into such an ultra-compact is an achievement in its self. There are 10 scene modes to suit all photographic situations that you may find yourself in and they are extremely easy to use and find in the camera user-friendly menu. This menu explains all you need to know as you go through it and the on-screen functions are so easy that you hardly need the manual at all. There is a very handy ‘one button, one function’ design with the FE-200 and the mode dial is extra easy to use and guides you through the 8 settings without having to scroll through tedious menus. The 2.5” LCD lens is a great size for viewing your subject and for playback but we found it difficult to see in direct light and had to keep tilting it away from the light to enable us to see the screen. There is an Image Stabilisation feature on-board which we thought was great to have on a camera in this price range but we were then disappointed to find out that it would only reduce shaking when zooming in and not when a shot was taken. |
| Performance |
| We really did expect great things from the performance of the Olympus FE-200 being the flagship of the FE range (and the most expensive), but unfortunately it was as slow as a tortoise and this was not what we wanted to discover. The start-up time to shoot time was a miserable 4 seconds and then it was a jaw dropping 7.5 seconds before we could take the next shot! The shutter lag time was only about 1 second but with the ridiculous delay between shots we almost gave up with it there and then. The images were just as bad with inaccurate colours and purple fringing on nearly every shot we took. While shots were underexposed the lens impressed us further and operated well with hardly any distortion and only very slight barrel distortion. |
| What's In The Box? |
Camera, Strap, Lithium Ion Battery, Lithium Ion Battery Charger, USB cable, AV cable, Instruction Manuals, Warranty card, Software CD-ROM (Olympus Master) |
| Overall Opinion |
| We liked the Olympus FE-200 digital camera until we switched it on and saw the results. We would rather own one of it’s predecessors which are cheaper and much more impressive. |
| By Hayley Malyon |
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Pros + Great 5x optical zoom lens + 6 mega pixel CCD sensor + 2.5” LCD screen |
Cons - Slow start-up and sluggish lag time - Poor image quality |
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Picture Quality 7/10
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Battery Life 8/10
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Setup Simplicity 8/10
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Build Quality 7/10
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Ease of Use 7/10
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Overall Rating 
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11/12/2006
at 12:45:44pm
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