Less than a point and shoot, more than a disposable.

You know those disposable cameras that you can buy almost anywhere? Kodak even has a disposable digital one now. Well the point is that you have a very portable, small camera that you can take around taking little snapshots that nobody will ever expect to be portrait quality.

Well Kyocera has made a camera that fits that description except that it has enough bells and whistles to be more than a throw away but less than a quality point and shoot. What do you have left over? Well whatever it is, it is the Finecam SL300R digital camera.

So read on and find out!

Picture Quality: B
Look the bottom line with any camera is picture quality, if it does a bad job with the picture quality, why own the camera? Well the Finecam 300 takes average pictures at best, some would give it extra credit for being so darn small but I say NAY! no extra credit simply because they packaged a mediocre camera in a very small frame. This is a camera you'll enjoy taking to the beach, to little picnics, to the dog park, but it isn't a camera that will take pictures you will want blown up. This is because the quality lacks in a few key areas.

The first is sharpness. You know how you have sharpness control on your tv, well I kept on wanting to increase the sharpness of the pics this little guy was taking. The edges of everything was a tiny bit dull, not enough to be totally annoying but if you look at the pictures of a higher end point and shoot, you'd go "oh wow they are much sharper". And yes I did adjust it's sharpness setting but it just didn't do much for me.

The second major drawback is low light exposure. Now this camera being so darn small does have an unusual large selection of ISO range 100-800, but because the flash is also very average, in low light you are goin to want to increase the ISO to compensate, the problem is the camera is just not steady at all, very small equals unstable. Past ISO 400 the noise is just going to overwhelm you, and you don't even want to try the 800 setting because with no tripod mount you might as well have some fun and shake it up and down while taking a photo, you might get a clearer picture. Yes I know this might be harsh but I don't like cameras that have options that are really unrealistic to use for that particular camera.

Purple fringing is about average for the camera, most people wouldn't see it unless your familiar with it, but you would see it in blown up pics. I've certainly seen worse, so this surprised me.

Design: A+
Now that you read the possibly over-harsh review of the photo quality, now read all the positives. First off is the styling of the camera. Oh baby this is a sleek camera. They took the idea of the nikon coolpics camera and made it so the lense is able to rotate on a vertical axis seperate from the rest of the body, you might think so what, but trust me this is very nice for your wrists. No more do you have to kneel down or get in awkward positions to get that perfect shot, simply rotate, look in the LCD and click. It adds a lot to the camera.

The camera itself being so thin also gives it huge "cool" credibility. It is a camera people will be at least mildly impressed by.

Kyocera overcame the small size by adding new ways to access different features, like they couldn't add a round rotating scene selection like you'll find in larger digital cameras, but instead you'll find lots of tiny buttons that navigate the menus quickly and easily. The problem here is that for big fingers this camera will make you look silly because instead of using your thumb you'll have to index finger punch them because they are just so close together. Canon has had multiple models of elph cameras to fine tune their small button configurations and hopefully Kyocera will learn from this and add some space inbetween these buttons! So just to be clear, I love the menu's that the Finecame SL300 has but they are hard for my thumbs to navigate with the closely cropped buttons.

The frame of the camera is a very slick metal frame, just like the ones that were popularized by the canon elph series. I'm very pro canon but I love the style so I'll give them kudos for using a very slick and durable design. You can't go wrong with a well made metal frame.

There is no Optical Viewfinder, this I assume is another space saving decisions, which is find 95% of the time, except under especially bright conditions or especially dark conditions where you just can't see the LCD screen.

One decision I hated with the SL300 is there is no tripod mount. This almost dooms this camera into the snapshot role, never to really hold a near and dear status for the typical family. They did this to save space (I hope) but the end result is a camera I wouldn't buy. I use a tripod a lot for group photo's with my Canon S230.

Unfortunently I'll end this on a bad note. You will absolutely need a lense cleaning kit because of the nature of the camera. Above I said I liked the swivel lense, and that is true, but you add fingers and manual movement to anything that has something you shouldn't touch, such as the lense, and you'll eventually touch it. It actually took me 20 or so shots before I realized I had smudged the lense and cleaned it off. This is the drawback for having that swivel lense, after I realized this I was super careful of not touching that lense, but trust me I would have eventually done it again.

Zoom: A-
You know I'm actually really impressed by Kyocera here, canon and sony chose not to include a zoom with their ultra compact models, but Kyocera included it. Of all the design decisions surrounding the SL300 this really did impress me. You get a range of about 35mm-110mm for the zoom, you have a few options of wide angle and macro focus that work ok. Don't expect to get anything spectacular because you must remember the size of the camera and the lense, the fact that your even getting a optical zoom is gravy.

Remember optical zoom is the only zoom that matters, digital zoom you can do on your computer.

Battery: B+
You know with the last couple cameras I reviewed, I sort of got spoiled. These cameras had batteries that would so far outlast a typical 128mb flashcard that I just got used to it, of course these cameras were also far larger than the SL300. The SL300's lithium rechargeable battery will give you in the 150 pic range. Less if you use the flash a lot, more if you don't use the flash much, far less without the LCD, but with no optical viewfinder good luck taking shots. So I guess the battery is about run of the mill, not bad, but not great but I will say it is a lot smaller than the typical battery which when you weigh it against the others, it probably packs a lot for it's size.

Performance: A+
What you say? Performance? Isn't that the same as picture quality? No no no I say, performance is how the camera operates. And let me say peformance is the true gem of the SL300.

The only weakness in how this camera performs is the startup time, it has a rather lengthy 5 second startup from when you push power to when it is ready to snap a shot. But that is the only weakness!

I was blown away, simply blown away by the very impressive 4 shots per second or 1 every 2 seconds with the flash. This would be super for a larger framed camera much less a ultra small model. Kyocera accomplished this by introducing a super fast transfer method to a special type of flashcard designed for faster transfer speed. The drawback and quite dumfounding part of this is that the card that comes with the camera...it's not that type of card, so you will absolutely have to buy an additional flashcard and it will cost you more to get that special super fast type of card. Annoying but darn if it isn't fast.

The autofocus works very fast, about 1/4 of a second or 1/2 when it has to use the flash, Kyocera really wanted to make a speed demon with this camera.

Price: A-
Kyocera has very wise priced this camera to sell it, at around 300 for a small slick camera, the stores won't have any trouble selling it. As 3 megapixel cameras go, you'll be hard pressed to find one for so less especially the most up to date models. You might find a S400 by canon on super duper sale for just over 300 but that is rare, bottom line is this is a nicely priced camera. Online you can get closer to $250 which is very nice.

CONCLUSION
Ok so see that can of coke by your desk? Pick it up, the SL300 weighs less than half that weight. Kyocera really wanted a ultra small camera that weighs next to nothing, and they accomplished it. They added some super bells and whistles including one of the fastest performing cameras I've had the pleasure to use. But the saddening thing is that they had to leave out so much that the cons almost outweigh the pros. No tripod, very average photo quality, no optical viewfinder. If you realize the limitations and get it simply as a snapshot camera (remember less than a point and shoot, more than a disposable) you'll be pleased with this camera. Woe to those novices who are so mesmerized by the coolness factor of the SL300 that they buy it expecting a overall good point and shoot for they will wish a pox on the house of Kyocera and will rue the day they bought the SL300.

I have reservations but overall I Recommend the Kyocera Mita Finecam SL300.