Fujifilm @xia Slimshot

Impressive image quality for a credit card-sized digital camera.

This is the world's slimmest digital camera and that's official (Guinness World Records 2002), measuring just 6mm in depth. In every other respect it is the same size as a credit card (85.6 x 54mm), making it a portable and lightweight camera.

Technically it is similar to the StyleCam Blink, offering a 0.31 mega-pixel CMOS sensor, 8MB flash memory, a lens aperture of F3.8 and a focal length of 6.87mm. There is a choice between two image formats: a low quality QVGA mode (320 x 240 pixels) and a high quality VGA mode (640 x 480 pixels).

It includes an internal rechargeable Lithium polymer battery, which has a surprisingly long life and is recharged via the USB port when transferring images.

It does, however, offer less functionality than the StyleCam Blink, sticking to straight photography only. There is no web camera or streaming video mode and less software is supplied.

But it does offer one feature that most cameras don't - something called Autobrite, a proprietary technology licensed from SMaL Camera Technologies, which provides superior image quality.

This technology provides a wider adaptive dynamic range than other cameras (up to 500 times wider in some cases), which means it can cope better with lighting differences in a scene. In layman's terms, it automatically adjusts brightness levels in a scene to create a much more realistic photograph.

Comparing images with the Blink it is obvious what an improvement this technology makes to image quality, improving the crispness of an image and more closely emulating what the eye sees.

Due to this Autobrite technology the Slimshot is capable of far fewer shots than the Blink, managing 101 shots in low quality QVGA mode, and just 26 in high quality VGA mode.

If you are overly concerned about image quality, or require printing, then the Slimshot is for you. But if quantity is of more importance then it's a bit of a letdown.

Image transfer is fast thanks to its USB connection, with a full camera transferred in about a minute. Images are in JPEG format and automatically saved in a dated folder for easy organisation.

The supplied software is limited but capable, consisting of the Slimshot Photo Album for image transfer and Arcsoft PhotoImpression for basic image editing. The camera, and all its software, is both Mac- and Windows-compatible.

It does look good and is solid enough, although it feels a little off-balance due to the lens being located on the right of the body.

Contact: Fujifilm 020 7586 1477
www.fujifilm.co.uk