Product Unavailable Our suggested alternatives: Editor's Choice Sony Cyber-shot HX9V Lower-Cost Superzoom Canon PowerShot SX230 HS Quality Budget Snapper Canon Ixus 220 HS

After Samsung and Olympus, and before them Fuji, now it's Casio's turn to offer a compact with a 10x zoom to compete with Panasonic and Canon. 

Casio has opted for an ultra wide-angle lens and has added an extremely hardy battery which promises a battery life of 1000 photos in between recharges.

Apart from its 24-240 mm zoom, 12 Megapixel sensor and an astonishing battery life, the Casio H10 is a stylish camera in a series of bright colours--a first for a sector the market traditionally restricted to more conservative looks.  Will it be able to beat the solid TZ7 or the SX200 IS?

> Test: Casio Exilim EX-H10

> Product Survey: Compact Digital Cameras 2009

After the problems we had with the FZ38 earlier this week, now it's the G11 that we've had to pull from the Product Face-Off.

The European management at Canon contacted us to insist we removed the test photos, because the G11 that we tested was a pre-production prototype, and the very final version might be better when we get a chance to test it.

It seems the fact that we were amongst the first in the world to release images of the G11 wasn't entirely unrelated.  Some forum posters have commented on how some of our JPEGs seemed to suffer from electronic noise, but the RAW photos that we also took were met with universal approval.


So … it's gone!

> Hands-on Preview: Canon G11

The majority of manufacturers have recently adopted a standard for measuring the lifespan of their printer cartridges: the ISO/IEC 24711 test.  And it's very reliable.

In the past, manufacturers used lifespans calculated using the '5%' method, ostensibly based on the fact that printing the 'average' document involves covering 5% of the total surface of the page.  There was no fair way of comparing tests from different manufacturers and the results were rarely trustworthy.  Now though, they use a new standard with very precise parameters, and the specifications of different manufacturers can be compared.



How it works

• The five pages above are printed again and again in standard mode without any settings that would prolong the life of the cartridge, until it runs out.

• This test is repeated at least three times for each type of cartridge to make it more accurate.

What we're most impressed with is the diversity of the pages that are printed.  They're a very good representation of what we print ourselves--and might even involve more colour than most average users produce; they really don't scrimp on ink.  That means we could even say that the lifespan figures that this new standard test produces are lower than you might achieve in reality.  Apart from one detail, that is.

One small problem

The problem?  That the pages are printed continuously.  Nobody ever prints 800 pages in a row.  Instead, after producing half a dozen or so pages, we turn the printer off.  Then, when it's switched on again, the printer often starts an internal cleaning cycle to make sure its nozzles are clean, which wastes some ink.  It might not sound much, but our tests have shown that between 5% and 20% of ink is lost during these operations.  The less you print, the more the printer is switched off and the more ink you waste.

In the past, one of the main advantages of printers with separate cartridges was that they wasted less ink than mono-block cartridges with built-in print heads.  That's no longer the case, as all the manufactures now have print heads in the printer itself, separate from the cartridges.  That makes the consumables cheaper to produce and easier to recycle.

At the end of the day, these factors might well cancel each other out.  On the one hand, the ISO standard uses page that require more ink than normal, but the test procedure itself minimises the amount of ink wasted cleaning.  The results are very useful figures that make an excellent base for comparing printers. 

> Product Survey: Multifunction Printers

Have you ever fallen in love with a mouse?  Such strange behaviour will no doubt raise a few eyebrows, but, we promise you, the new Logitech G500 left us very impressed!

Its predecessor, the G5, was already well-known and very well-liked, but the G500 that replaces it does better in every area.  Its sensor can now keep track of its movement at speed of up to four metres pre second, meaning there's no longer anything holding this laser mouse back when compared to those with LEDs, it has a brand new look with new buttons and an excellent scroll wheel that can either turn freely or click round.

The G500 is not yet available but will be in stores in a few days.  While you're waiting, come and have a look at the test and see why we're such big fans of this new mouse ...

> Test: Logitech G500

> Product Survey: Mice