There are more cameras available around the £100-mark than ever before, but how does Nikon's latest S-series compact compare?
Nikon COOLPIX S2500 Review
Design and Performance
Nikon COOLPIX S2500 review – Design
The Nikon S2500 benefits from an eye-catching design. The body of the camera is aluminium in build and just 20mm thick which means, when you consider the weight being just 117g, the S2500 is an eminently-pocketable compact. The model is also available in four colours – red, pink, black and silver – which just serves to firm the notion that the S2500 is aimed at the entry-level.
For a circa-£100 compact, the Nikon S2500 has a reassuringly solid feel to it, no doubt a cause of the aluminium body. The menu is designed well, covering just the basic of adjustable camera functionality. Buttons are intelligently laid out on the rear of the camera, giving enough space for a comfortable grip of the camera, and in general the S2500 is a very well designed compacts camera.
Nikon COOLPIX S2500 review – Performance
The first thing that strikes you when using the Nikon COOLPIX S2500 is that the focus system is fairly slow. When trying to set focus on a subject, the camera takes a good second, and often more, to find a focal point and then fix. Furthermore, while the addition of subject tracking AF is good in theory, it fails to deliver in practice – the S2500 manages to track the subject well, however when one comes to try and photograph the subject the shutter delay means that the subject has likely left the area focused upon. Start-up time is also fairly slow, although it’s not terrible and won’t leave you standing around for too long waiting to shoot.
The camera’s best shot selector mode, on the other hand, performs well in use and can be a very useful tool when you’re looking to cut down the margin for error when capturing images.
Other performance points are around what you’d expect from a camera at this price-point. The models LCD screen struggles in bright light, though it’s hard to put this down to anything other than the resolution, itself due to keeping the cost down. It’s also worth nothing that the Smart Auto scene selection setting works well, and will take the pain out of camera setting selection for those new to photography.