Nikon Coolpix S80: Sleek Pocket Slider Coming this Autumn

Nikon is updating its pocket compact, the Coolpix S70, with a new and improved version called, you guessed it, the Coolpix S80. The camera's design and interface have been completely reworked, and so too has the internal technology (even if it hasn't necessarily changed for the better).

The S80 is certainly a very, very attractive camera. It's touch-control too, and has a particularly pleasant 3.5-inch OLED screen with 820,000 dots, which is a massive improvement on the S70's 288,000 dots. Interestingly, Nikon is advertising that the screen covers 150% of the sRGB colour space, although it's pretty unlikely that the S80 can actually handle anything larger than the regular sRGB space. The likes of the Adobe RGB colour space, for example, are usually only found in professional cameras.

The S80 has been very well designed and made, with a slide-over cover that makes a reassuringly sharp 'click' noise when opened and closed. The camera's controls and interface have also been redesigned, making this new Coolpix stand out from the crowd of the run-of-the-mill compacts currently on the market. The shots we saw taken at the S80 presentation event showed the camera to handle more a smartphone than a classic compact. There's even a selection of fun filters to play around with, including a slightly strange face-slimming function.

On the inside, however, we were a bit less impressed with the spec. There's the now-standard 14-Megapixel CCD, but we're having real trouble understanding why Nikon chose to ditch the wide-angle zoom for a 35-175 mm. The official line is that it's to keep the camera as slim as possible (17 mm with the sliding cover closed), but Sony T-series cameras are only a millimetre thicker and manage to find room for a wide-angle lens (and the TX5 is even waterproof).

The Coolpix S80 will be available in October for £330.


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