Another great advanced compact camera from Canon, the PowerShot A630 is a wonderful choice for those after a little more control and versatility. It offers great image quality and comes with plenty of useful features.

The PowerShot SX100 is a solid ultra-zoom advanced camera. While there are bigger lenses on the market, the 10x optical zoom here means the unit still fits comfortably in a pocket and the images, while a little noisy, are good at low ISO sensitivities.

With high levels of chromatic aberration and slow operation, the SP-350 is far from a perfect camera, but the images look great at smaller levels and so it could definitely be worth a look if you need a compact, powerful advanced model

Wide-angle lens lovers will be thrilled with the shots the Coolpix 8400 can take. It's a powerful, flexible camera; but it's not the easiest or fastest camera to use.

The Canon PowerShot Pro 1 is a well-featured 8Mp semi-professional camera that should suit users wanting digital SLR performance in a compact package.

Another home run for Canon, while the PowerShot A720 IS isn't perfect it is pretty close and it's combination of sharp, vibrant pictures, speedy operation and manual shooting modes is sure to please a variety of consumers.

While not a perfect camera, Olympus' SP-560UZ is an excellent choice for users after an ultra-zoom. It combines good pictures with a robust feature set and a fantastic design.

The Kodak P880 would have been a great camera but for problems with image quality, and massive write times for the advanced file formats.

The FZ30 is a joy to take pictures with. If not for the price tag, and the image noise problem, this would be one of our favourites. As it stands, it is a solid entry by Panasonic, and will satisfy most users.

Professional build quality, a fast 7X optical zoom and support for both Memory Stick Pro and CompactFlash II cards place the DSC F828 squarely in the semi-professional category.

A competent entry into the 8 megapixel arena.

The 8700 is a great enthusiast's camera, delivering excellent, detailed images and a long zoom lens in a light, compact package