While the Ricoh R8 offers a few excellent features such as the 28-200mm lens and the brilliant LCD screen, its images have a few issues that mean it may not be right for everyone.

If you can put up with the difficult user interface and the not-so-sleek body, the DSC-H50 from Sony is an extremely competent and feature-packed camera.

It’s a slim and simple camera, but Fujifilm’s Finepix Z20fd will only suit amateur users who aren’t overly concerned with image sharpness and quality.

The DSC-W110 is simple to use and perfect to take to parties, but it's a very automatic camera and its pictures tend to look soft.

A decent but not noteworthy compact camera, the Nikon CoolPix S550 sports a 5x optical zoom with image stabilisation but it is let down a little in the image quality and speed departments.

FujiFilm's FinePix S100fs is a great pseudo-SLR camera. Its 11.1 megapixel sensor and large 28-400mm lens capture great snaps and the manual shooting modes combined with speedy operation make it flexible and powerful.

A decent but still somewhat disappointing compact, the FujiFilm FinePix Z100fd produces decent pictures at low ISO settings. It's hampered by an annoying interface and some image quality issues.

This is a decent model to choose if you want a long zoom range and versatile controls, yet don't want a bulky digital SLR. It's good for travellers in this respect, despite its soft pictures and slightly underdone colour.

Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX38 is a great compact camera for cashed-up consumers. It combines impressive image quality with a slim, stylish and sturdy design as well as a 25mm wide-angle lens, making it suitable for a variety of tasks.