Nikon P310 Brings Pixels and a Button

Last year, Nikon released the P300, a scaled-down expert compact lined up to rival the Canon S95. This year's replacement, the P310, brings a few minor updates to the same basic formula. Although these aren't quite enough to keep up with Canon's new S100, the P310 has the advantage of being fair bit cheaper.
 

Towards the end of last year, Canon totally overhauled its expert compact, releasing a new S100 which didn't have much in common with its predecessor, the S95 (apart from its general design). Rather than going all out to compete with Canon's new model, Nikon has made a few minor updates with the Coolpix P310. However, at £300 (pricing TBC), it's the best part of £100 cheaper than the Canon S100!

The P310 has plenty in common with the P300. In fact, the only change to the exterior comes in the form of a new customisable button, which has been conveniently placed just next to the lens. The P310 uses the same, pretty good 24-100 mm lens seen it the P300, and has the same pleasant compact body and 3-inch screen with 920,000 dots. It records video in Full HD with stereo sound, and boasts a 7 fps burst mode and a handy RAW mode.

The only really new thing about this camera is its 16-Megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, which we'll be keen to see in action. In the S8200, Nikon handled noise by smoothing the image, but that's a solution we'd rather not see in an expert compact.