Casio's Exilim Z400 has some very interesting specs, including a 4x zoom, a 28 mm wide-angle lens, mechanical image stabilisation and a 720p video mode.  But does the Z400 live up to these tempting offers in practice?

Handling

The Z400, which is available in a range of different colours, is reassuringly robust.  Despite our initial reservations, the glossy finish is attractive, although it probably isn't for everybody. 

The rear features a large 3'' glossy screen which doesn't leave much room for the buttons and easily gets covered with greasy fingerprints.  Despite being so large, it only has 230, 000 pixels, which is pretty weak for a screen of this size.  It does, though, have large viewing angles which make it a little easier to use.

Usefully, Casio has included a programmable shortcut key that you can map to one of eight preset functions.  It's joined by another helpful addition, a button that gives direct access to video mode.

We found the autofocus to be very fast--almost instantaneous, in fact, whatever the light level.  It's a shame we can't say the same for powering up the camera, which takes almost two seconds, and having to wait 3.2 seconds after saving two photos one after the other is too much.

Image Quality

Is the inclusion of a 12 Megapixel sensor a guarantee of good quality photos?  Using wide-angle mode, both the lens and the sensor work in unison to give good, sharp pictures with balanced colours.  Outside of wide-angle mode, things are little more blurry, but can easily be sharpened up afterwards using software.  In both cases, the exposure is even and accurate.

We noticed purple fringing in parts of the frame with high contrast, and the white balance tended to produce reds towards the centre of the frame, although this effect was mostly limited.

There has been little innovation in handling of electronic noise.  Up to 200 ISO, photos are reasonably clear, despite a little blurring.  At 400 ISO, this blurring becomes very noticeable and irritating at 800 ISO.  A lot of details are lost, but an A4 print is still feasible, although a general blurriness is the price you pay to avoid specific defects.  Trying anything beyond (1600 or 3200 ISO) is not recommended.


The 720p HD video produces decent results, but you can't use zoom while recording.  All of the clips we shot were reasonably fluid, thanks to the framerate of 24 fps, but some movements are a little jerky.