This Kodak EASYSHARE V550 Zoom performs extremely well in terms of image quality, yet falls down in several other key areas.

The V550 is a departure from the regular Kodak consumer camera design. It was a very pleasant surprise when we opened the box of this model to discover a slim, stylish, brushed aluminium body. It feels solid and looks great.

The V550 also comes sporting a nice-looking 230,000 pixel, 2.5" LCD. We love big LCDs; they make framing shots just that much easier.

The V550 uses Kodak's standard menu system, which is a brilliant system for new photographers. An on-camera help system succinctly explains what each function does.

This is where the good ends, however. The most noticeable absence from the menu system is any sort of real manual control. That includes manual control over things like aperture, shutter speed and focus. It does offer the standard white balance and ISO controls, and plenty of preset shooting modes, but this won't sate photographers who like to fine-tune their shots manually.

We found the V550 had incredibly fast startup, almost no noticeable shutter lag and 1 to 1.5 seconds image write lag.

The images this camera produces are nothing short of beautiful. For a 5 megapixel model, the V550 outdoes itself, taking images that rival many, more expensive 7 megapixel models. The colour is rich, the detail is clear and crisp. The pictures are something any photographer would be proud to have on their wall.