FujiFilm's FinePix S1000fd is a decent ultra-zoom with a small body, but its lack of image stabilisation makes the large lens much less useful and the sluggish performance will irritate many users.

Another wonderful entry-level camera from Canon, the 1000D combines all the latest features — including Live View, dust reduction and lens-based stabilisation — with superb picture quality to produce an extremely appealing package.

Olympus' SP-570UZ continues the trend of its past ultra-zooms, offering an enticing package for users looking for a larger lens. It isn't perfect — at times it can be sluggish and the pictures have some minor issues — but on the whole it does a solid job.

Nikon's CoolPix S52c is a good option if Wi-Fi connectivity sounds useful for you. However, it is extremely slow at times, which becomes frustrating in some shooting scenarios.

FujiFilm's FinePix F100fd is a very solid high-end compact camera. It combines good quality 12-megapixel images with a lot of cool features such as ISO 12,800, a wide angled 5x optical zoom lens and dynamic range options to make an enticing overall package.

While Samsung's i8 is a fairly decent digital camera, its media functionality could use a little improvement (particularly in terms of audio quality).

If you can see past the cost of the unit, it offers a 10x optical zoom and adequate built-in image stabilisation capability, as well as a 9.1-megapixel sensor. All in all, a good travel camera.

The P80 from Nikon is an advanced camera with a very capable zoom lens. It’s not as fast as the majority of other advanced cameras we’ve looked at, but the images it captures are rich and sharp.

This camera has a big zoom for its size, and features some useful program modes and manual setting possibilities, but if you want super-crisp photos at a resolution higher than 1600x1200, you'll want to look elsewhere.

The Cyber-shot DSC-W120 is a fashionable camera that is simple to use and captures crisp, rich photos, although it’s slightly expensive and doesn’t have many advanced features.