Another great compact camera from Canon, the IXUS 70 excels with a tiny design and good quality pictures, making it ideal as an all purpose happy snap camera.

A solid all around compact camera, Sony's Cyber-Shot DSC-W55 will appeal to users looking for a no-fuss entry into the digital photography market.

Sony's Cyber-Shot DSc-G1S is a very interesting product. Its 3.5in LCD combined with 2GB of onboard memory and music player make it stand out from the crowd, and it should be a good purchase if you're after an all purpose digital camera that can fulfill a variety of roles.

Designed specifically for a niche market, the Tough 770SW is an ideal camera for those into the rougher side of life. Its pictures aren't the best we've seen, but for some that isn't the primary concern when buying a camera, and for those people this model may be a good choice.

A brilliantly designed unit, the MJU 780 will please a variety of consumers with its optical image stabilisation, 5x optical zoom and high ISO sensitivities. Its pictures aren't the best on the market but they are more than adequate for most uses.

The MJU 760 is a strong compact camera with particular appeal for beginner photographers thanks to Olympus' guide system and its intuitive interface. Combine these with good picture quality and a classy design, and have you a great product.

A solid, but not exceptional, advanced ultra-zoom camera, Kodak's Z712 IS offers a big zoom backed up by optical image stabilisation. However, its pictures aren't quite as good as some of the competing models on the market.

The best entry level SLR we've used, the D40x narrowly edges out offerings by Canon and Sony. It combines extremely speedy operation, great quality images and an excellent design to make a wonderful, all purpose camera.

A good but not outstanding compact camera, Kodak's EASYSHARE C763 will satisfy most users, but there are better purchases out there for the same asking price.

An uninspiring compact camera, Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-S650 has numerous issues with regards to image quality and general operation that mean there are better purchases elsewhere.

The Z5fd is a good balance of size, style and function and its video capture is very impressive for a compact digital camera.

Another strong entry into the compact camera market by Canon, the A560 produces similarly high quality pictures to its sister model, the A550, and this time around they have packed in Face Detect, which will be a big selling point for some users.