Small, sleek, great pictures.

When looking for a new camera, we wanted something small, easy to use, and that took good pictures. The Nikon Coolpix S500 was a great choice.

We wanted something small so that it would be easy to carry. Although we usually carry it in a dedicated camera case, the S500 is tiny enough to fit comfortably in your pants pocket. This portability makes it more likely that you'll use the camera a moment's notice. And it turns on quickly, in less than 2 seconds, so you won't miss someone blowing out birthday cake candles, for example.

The camera itself is compact, but feels solidly constructed. The controls on the back of the camera are easy to use. Nikon enhanced its usual 5-way (top, bottom, left, right, and middle) directional control with a wheel. In addition to the usual directional button presses, you can turn the wheel clockwise or anti-clockwise. Navigating menus and making selections on the display are a little simpler and more intuitive as a consequence.

The power, shutter, face recognition, and anti-vibration buttons are on the top of the camera. The face recognition feature actually works most of the time, giving visual cues on the display when the camera chooses the region in its frame that it will concentrate focus and lighting adjustments on. The anti-vibration works well, but usually at the cost of adding graininess to the picture, especially evident in low-light conditions.

Removing and inserting the battery and SD memory card is simple and straightforward, but the plastic door that hides them seems flimsy.

The camera comes with a proprietary lithium-ion battery and a charger. The charger tops up the battery in less than 2 hours. If you turn the flash off, the camera can easily take over a hundred pictures before needing to be recharged. Use the camera with the flash on and you might get as few as 25 or 30 pictures before requiring the charger.

To reduce the camera's size, there is no old-fashioned optical viewfinder. To compose your image, you'll have to rely exclusively on the display, which is large, bright, and sharp.

The camera takes great pictures, even in low light if you hold it steadily enough. Colors are vivid and edges are sharp. With the help of the control wheel and menus, you have a wide variety of picture taking modes, ranging from useful (backlighting), interesting (time-lapse video and panoramic assist), and questionable (indoor party). This is not a video camera, but its video capturing mode creates acceptable videos, although the sound is somewhat tinny and the images are not always as vivid as the camera's still photos.

The camera connects to your computer with an included USB cable. When connected, it appears as a memory device. It works perfectly well with Mac OS X iPhoto application. Also included is an audio/video cable with standard RCA plugs to connect to a TV set.