Nikon 1 S1

The compact system camera (CSC) market is getting increasingly crowded and homogenised, but there's no risk of the Nikon 1 system blending in. These cameras are smaller and lighter than rival CSC systems, but that's mostly because their 13.2x8.8mm sensors are quite a bit smaller than the 17.3x13mm and 23.5x15.6mm sensors used elsewhere. And whereas most CSCs offer SLR-like control, the more affordable models in the Nikon 1 range are unashamedly point-and-shoot devices.

This is all the more true of the S1, which establishes a new entry-level line below the J3 and V2 models. It swaps the J3's aluminium body for plastic, and omits a mode dial. Instead, its various modes are selected by pressing the F button and spinning the rear wheel. As with the J3 and its predecessors, the available options are quirky scene presets rather than conventional PASM shooting modes, which are hidden away as a subset of the Creative mode.


The S1 introduces a new 11-27.5mm kit lens, which gives a 35mm-equivalent focal length range of 30-74mm. It collapses down for transit, extending just 31mm from the camera – 10mm less than the kit lens bundled with other Nikon 1 cameras. The downside is a smaller 2.5x zoom range and a lack of optical stabilisation. This isn't an absolutely crucial feature, but omitting it means faster shutter speeds are necessary to avoid camera shake. This in turn pushes up the ISO speed and noise levels.
This isn't the only compatible lens, of course. The Nikon 1 system is growing fast, with nine lenses currently available. Still, that's a long way behind the Sony NEX system (15 lenses) and Panasonic and Olympus's Micro Four Thirds (38 lenses).
One compelling advantage of the S1 over its rivals is that fitting a telephoto lens doesn't add significantly to its bulk. A dual lens kit is available for around £520 including VAT, which includes the 11-27.5mm plus a 30-110mm lens (81-297mm in 35mm-equivalent values) – a strong candidate for wildlife and sports photography. This lens is also remarkably small and light, at 180g and 61mm long when retracted for transit.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY
As with the rest of the Nikon 1 range, the S1 is particularly well suited to sports and wildlife photography because of its fast continuous performance. It can capture 15 frames at 15, 30 or 60fps, and is ready to go again a couple of seconds later. Even more useful is the ability to shoot at 5fps with continuous autofocus. It kept this speed up for an impressive 33 frames before slowing to 2.7fps. This mode is ideal for tracking moving subjects, and this performance is significantly faster than any of its rivals.

5fps shooting with continuous autofocus is ideal for wildlife photography. This shot was taken with the 30-110mm lens, but we had to dig in the menus for the shutter priority mode in order to freeze motion with a 1/1,000s shutter speed
Sadly, the S1 isn't so nippy in normal use. We measured 1.4 seconds between shots, which is almost three times slower than the Panasonic GF6 and Olympus E-PM2. Meanwhile, the controls seem to be designed to prevent casual users stumbling upon conventional manual controls such as ISO speed, autofocus mode and white balance. There's a bare minimum of buttons, no quick-access menu, and the most useful controls are inexplicably spread across different parts of the main menu.
CSC Shootout - SPEED TEST - Sony NEX-3N, Olympus Pen E-PM2, Nikon S1 and Panasonic GF6

Here we compare shooting speed, single drive and continuous (JPEG and RAW) between the four current budget CSCs
Another big disappointment is the battery life, which is quoted at 220 shots. Heavy use of the continuous shooting modes could mean it runs out in an hour or two. Spare batteries are reasonably priced at £36 but we'd say at least one is an essential purchase.

Olympus Pen E-PM2

The E-PM2 is the entry-level model in the PEN range, but it still boasts some upmarket features. Its metal body houses the same 16-megapixel sensor that's used in Olympus's top-of-the-range Olympus OMD E-M5. Continuous shooting is at 8fps – double what most CSCs at this price manage and only a shade behind the E-M5's 9fps performance.

There's an accessory shoe that accepts not just external flashguns but also an electronic viewfinder, microphone input, Bluetooth dongle (for wireless photo transfers to Android devices) and even a pair of macro LED lamps on flexible arms. There's a small flash unit included in the box, but it's no brighter than a typical integrated flash and rather spoils the camera's sleek design. We suspect a lot of people will leave it in the back of a drawer and forget about it.


Optical image stabilisation is incorporated into the sensor so it works with any lens. This includes wide-aperture lenses, which rarely have stabilisation built in. It's also worth noting the wide range of compatible Micro Four Thirds lenses – far more than for competing Sony NEX, Nikon 1 and Samsung NX systems.
CONTROLS
It all bodes well for keen photographers who want a sophisticated camera but don't have vast amounts of cash to spend, or perhaps who prefer to stock up on lenses rather than buy the most expensive camera body. However, these kinds of users may be less enamoured by the E-PM2's controls. It's no surprise that there's just a small scattering of buttons – that's typical for entry-level CSCs – but accessing key features is slower than on rival cameras.
There's a quick-access menu with 14 functions laid out over two pages, but fewer functions on a single page would be quicker to navigate. We doubt that many people feel the need to adjust the video resolution or toggle the video soundtrack on and off on a regular basis, and drive mode already has a dedicated labelled button. The six customisable functions on the Sony NEX-3N's quick-access menu work better, as does the Panasonic GF6's 11 functions that are all visible at once and can be jumped to using the touchscreen. The E-PM2's screen is touch-sensitive but it isn't used in either the quick-access or the main menu.


The touchscreen proves its worth when moving the autofocus point, though. It also goes a long way towards making up for the lack of a mode dial. Pressing the Menu button reveals the various modes, which can be selected by touching the screen.
The main menu is vast, spanning 23 pages. There's huge scope to customise the camera's behaviour but we didn't find it easy tracking down specific functions. It's not helped by cryptic labels such as FL BKT and Rls Priority S. Pressing the info button reveals explanations, but some of these provide no further clarity and they aren't available in sub-menus.
PERFORMANCE
Autofocus is seriously quick, and it's backed up by extremely responsive subject tracking. It took 0.6 seconds between shots in program mode, but iAuto mode was a little slower, at 0.8 seconds. The 8fps continuous shooting lasted for 19 frames before slowing to 2.9fps – a superb result. It maintained this top 8fps speed for 14 raw frames too. It's great to see Olympus pairing this fast performance with a decent-sized buffer. Continuous mode with updating autofocus was at 2.9fps.

IMAGE QUALITY - CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
Image quality was generally excellent, as we'd expect from a camera that shares the same sensor and image processing engine as the £1,000 E-M5. Colours were rich and flattering and details were crisp, with noise remaining unobtrusive up to ISO 3200. The top ISO 25600 is overly optimistic but we'd use ISO 12800 for casual snaps.

There's barely any evidence of noise in this low-light shot
Image quality wasn't faultless, though. Whereas most CSCs use digital correction to eliminate chromatic aberrations, this isn't available in Pen cameras. Sure enough, tell-tale halos of discolouration was visible towards the edges of the frame in high-contrast scenes. We found the autofocus to be a little unwieldy when shooting macro subjects. Otherwise, autofocus was up to scratch but it wasn't always as reliably sharp as the Panasonic GF6's.

Fujifilm X-A1

Compact system cameras (CSCs) have reached new heights of sophistication and refinement this year. While it's nice to be spoiled for choice, it also makes the choice much harder. With the X-M1, Fujifilm raised the bar for image quality, with exceptionally sharp details and low noise from its innovative X-Trans sensor. Its nippy performance, superb controls, Wi-Fi and elegant appearance with a hint of retro chic didn't hurt its chances, either. However, with a price just shy of £700, it's more expensive than other cameras with similar features, such as the Sony NEX-5R (and the practically identical NEX-5T which simply adds NFC to the its already strong list of features).

The Fujifilm X-A1 tucks in below the X-M1 to form the new entry-level model in the X Mount line-up. From the outside the two cameras are almost indistinguishable. Other than the inscription on the front, the only difference we can spot is the texture to the front of the camera body. Wi-Fi is built in for wireless transfers to Android and iOS devices, but there's no remote control function.


Both cameras use the same articulated LCD screen and the same controls. There's a dedicated mode dial and dual command dials for direct access to shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation, depending on the selected mode. The Fn button is customisable and makes for a useful ISO speed control.


There are labelled buttons on the back for autofocus area, white balance, macro focus and drive mode. Pressing the Q button reveals 15 icons on the screen for quick access to everything from autofocus mode to film simulation presets and even LCD brightness. It's arguably the most elegant and efficient control system on a CSC.

THE BIG BUT - CLICK IMAGE SAMPLES TO ENLARGE
The crucial difference between the two cameras is the sensor. It has the same 16-megapixel resolution and the same physical size – exactly the same size as consumer SLRs' sensors. However, while the X-M1 uses Fujifilm's latest X-Trans technology, the X-A1 uses a more conventional sensor design.
As a result, the X-A1 couldn't replicate the stunning sharp details and low noise that we saw from the X-M1. In fact, details looked slightly imprecise not just compared to the X-M1 but also up against the Sony NEX-5R and Panasonic GX7. The difference was pretty subtle, and in many photos we were hard pressed to notice it at all. However, dense textures proved to be a trickier challenge. We wouldn't describe detail levels as poor, but they weren't quite up to the standard we'd hope for from a 16-megapixel CSC.



Low-light tests gave less cause for concern, with little evidence of noise at ISO 3200. However, JPEGs exhibited tell-tale signs of heavy noise reduction, with even less definition to subtle details such as skin, hair and fabric. It's still a great result, and broadly in line with the superb noise levels we've seen from Sony NEX cameras. However, it can't live up to the high standards set by the X-M1.

PERFORMANCE
The new sensor hasn't affected continuous performance, matching the X-M1 with a 5.5fps top speed. With a fast SDHC card it kept that pace for 44 shots before slowing slightly to 4.4fps – a tremendous result. Switching to raw mode saw performance fall to 1.4fps after 11 shots. Autofocus wasn't as responsive as on the X-M1, though. We measured times of 0.5 to 0.9 seconds between fully pressing the shutter button and capturing a photo. The X-M1 managed 0.3 to 0.4 seconds in the same test. This contributed to a slightly disappointing 1.2 seconds between shots in normal use – hardly a poor result, but the Panasonic GX7 proves that SLR-like performance is possible from a CSC with its 0.4-second shot-to-shot time. We also found that autofocus was a little unreliable when shooting moving subjects in low light.
The video mode is light on features, with a fixed 30fps frame rate, a 14-minute maximum clip length and no control over exposure settings. Details in videos were a little sharper than we saw from the X-M1, but we spotted moiré interference on repeating patterns such as bricks and fabric. Video autofocus wasn't really up to the job, with regular focus hunting when recording nearby subjects.

CONCLUSION
The prospect of a more affordable X-M1 is appealing. £700 is a worryingly large amount to spend on a compact camera, while £500 seems a little more sane. It's great to find the same controls at this price, but that's only half of the X-M1's success story. Without its outstanding sensor, the X-A1 isn't nearly as enticing, even at this price.

The range is beautifully-formed, but small in terms of lens support
With less reasons to love it, the reasons to be wary become more prominent. It's relatively heavy and bulky for a CSC, its video mode is disappointing and X Mount lenses are expensive and few in number. It's still an impressive camera, but by today's lofty standards, that's not enough to stand out.

Canon Selphy CP900

While an inkjet might seem like the obvious choice for printing photos at home, it's not the only one. The Selphy CP900 is the latest in Canon's range of dye-sublimation photo printers. It comes with a large colour screen, a memory card slot and support for wireless networking.

For the uninitiated, dye-sublimation printers use a ribbon that's permeated with a solid dye. As the paper moves through the printer, the ribbon above it is heated, causing the dye to sublimate (become a gas without first becoming a liquid) and re-solidify on the cool paper, forming an image. This takes place in four quick passes beginning with yellow, then magenta and cyan to complete the image, then finally a clear protective overcoat.
Supplies for the CP900 come in matched packs of ribbons and paper, so the 36-sheet KP-36IN supply will print exactly 36 6x4in prints, for example. You can even use the prints as postcards thanks to address and stamp markings. Other formats, including sticker packs are available, but the printer can't handle anything larger than postcard size.


This is a small and attractive printer but, like other dye-subs, it requires a deceptive amount of space on the desk. The lidded clip-in media tray makes it about 300mm deep, and you must leave around 200mm of free space at the back to avoid blocking the paper as it emerges from the back of the printer during prints. It's important to keep the working area free from dust, as it can cause quite significant blemishes on a dye-sub print. With ribbons lasting only a maximum 36 prints, you'll be changing them fairly often, but it's a simple clip-in job and there's no mess.


The Selphy doesn't do much but print photos, so the driver has comparatively few options
The CP900's thermal print head means it needs a quiet cooling fan and uses slightly more power than you might expect, but it's quieter than most inkjets and faster than any we've tested. Over a USB connection, it takes around 55 seconds to print each borderless 6x4in print, although we found this increased to nearly 90 seconds over Wi-Fi, which is almost double Canon's 47-second claim.


You can tweak the colours and contrast of prints; many of ours seemed muted using the default settings
Prints from the CP900 were free of grain, and didn't suffer any obvious softness - a potential weakness in the dye-sub process. We weren't overly impressed with their colours, though, which seemed muted. The printer also struggled to cope with the smooth progression of shades in the blue sky of one test picture, seemingly running out of range at the darker end and tending toward blocks of a single shade.
This Canon Selphy CP900 is a quick photo printer, but the best photo inkjets produce superior prints. Alternatively, for those in less of a hurry, an online service such as Snapfish has no upfront fee and each print costs about half as much.

Brother MFC-J4510DW

At a glance, the MFC-J4510DW is clearly a departure for Brother. While hardly gorgeous, it's a much smarter and more attractive design than is typical of Brother’s MFPs. It's also the first printer we've reviewed that feeds A4 paper in a landscape orientation, the purpose of which is to facilitate A3 printing without consuming more desk space than is necessary.

Brother stresses that the MFC-J4510DW is an occasional A3 printer, and this is definitely the case. The primary paper tray is A4 only, and A3 sheets must be inserted into the printer one at a time via a slot at the rear. It doesn’t have a proper A3 input tray, so the user must ensure A3 sheets are picked and fed properly. We found the narrow slot made the process difficult, with several misfeeds during our early attempts. With experience, we learned it was best to load the paper and make sure the screen showed “manual feed slot ready” before sending an A3 job.
There's a similar problem with the output tray which, while fine for A4, isn't long enough to support an A3 page. The printer is smart enough not to fully eject the printed sheet, however, preventing it falling onto the floor.


It's a shame that A3-printing isn't delivered faultlessly, as this printer doesn't excel in many other respects. In some areas it seems better made and finished than some other Brother MFPs we've reviewed, but the paper input tray was rattled, and the retaining arm for the tilting scanner bed felt as if it needed to be forced back down again, and we had to check that it wasn't snagged on anything.
This is a fast text printer, peaking at almost 19 pages per minute in draft mode. The results were clear and very legible, but at normal quality the text was still clearly produced by an inkjet, having slightly fuzzy outlines. We were surprised by this printer's poor colour output, which seemed pale and suffered from a couple of subtle vertical imperfections running down the length of each page. Fortunately, the scanner was also rapid, and its results perfectly good enough for office tasks.


This printer supports regular and high-capacity ink cartridges, and using the latter should result in reasonable running costs of about 5.3p per page of mixed text and graphics. Text-only prints are likely to be a little less than the 1.8p ISO/IEC 24712 figure suggests. Unfortunately, at £170 the MFC-J4510DW is quite expensive in the first place; it's own Brother MFC-J5910DW may be bigger and uglier but at £100 it's a better, cheaper MFP if you need A3 printing.

HP Officejet Pro X576dw

HP’s Officejet Pro X576dw is an inkjet multifunction peripheral for businesses. Like Lomond’s Evojet Office it uses stationary print heads, albeit HP’s own PageWide system rather than Memjet's technology. This device is lighter than it looks, uses far less power than a laser and generates much less heat.

Unlike a normal inkjet, which needs to wait for small heads to traverse the page, the wide head in the X576dw covers the entire page width while the paper flows underneath without pause. The speed boost is remarkable, and HP claims a 70ppm print speed at draft settings, which is fast enough to embarrass a departmental laser printer.


The Officejet Pro X576dw’s 792Mhz processor is pretty powerful, and it’s possible to use other functions, such as scanning to a USB stick, while the X576dw is printing; we didn’t spot any sluggishness when we tried.
Having experienced the ultra-fast Lomond Evojet, we were ready for astonishing print speeds, but we didn’t get them on our first try. The default Professional quality setting prioritises quality over speed, but the X576dw still completed our 25-page text test at 32ppm. Set to General Office, it managed the same test at 45.5ppm, including the time taken to spool the print job, which is an exact match for the Evojet. Timed over 100 pages, it printed at more than a page per second.

This printer uses unique print quality terms; what’s wrong with Draft, Normal and High?
The X576dw delivered our colour test at an impressive 22.5ppm, but at General Office quality it flew along at 34.3ppm – the fastest colour result we’ve ever seen. It also delivered one of the fastest duplex (double-sided) prints we’ve seen, printing 10 colour sides on 5 sheets in 33 seconds.
HP has paired the Officejet Pro X576dw with a quick scanner, too. A single mono or colour photocopy took just nine seconds. 10-page monochrome copies print in only 37 seconds, and colour in 45 seconds. This is astonishingly quick. Regular scans were fast, even over Wi-Fi, with a 300dpi A4 scan needing just 10 seconds. A 1,200dpi 6x4in photo scan completed in 46 seconds.

We’re not great fans of HP’s oversimplified scan interface, but it’s good enough for general office work
Copy quality was high, as was print quality, although there was a subtle pixilation visible at the General Office setting. Photographs lacked impact on plain paper, however, and HP didn’t supply any of its recommended ColorLok paper for us to test. Scans were sharp, with accurate colours and good dynamic range, although there were some visible artefacts.
Using HP’s 970XL black and 971XL colour cartridges, colour prints cost 3.3per page and black prints cost just 0.8p per page. The X576dw isn’t cheap to buy, but it’s extremely cheap to run. The X576dw might not quite match the print quality of a similarly expensive colour laser MFP, but its speed and low running costs are much better, winning it a Business Buy award.

HP OfficeJet 150

We’ve eagerly awaited the Officejet 150 since HP announced it last May because this portable multifunction printer (MFP) uses a Lithium ion battery, so you really can use it to print on the move.

The compact Officejet 150 is about the size of a cereal packet, but HP’s managed to cram in a printer, scanner, colour touchscreen and a memory card slot for photo printing. When not in use, the paper input tray folds forward and clips firmly over the top, and the paper output flap flips up to protect the front.
The Officejet 150 is made from unusually thick plastic, which helps give the impression that it could survive many business trips. It isn’t perfect, though, as it weighs 3.1kg and the rear-mounted battery is exposed to knocks.


Sadly, the Officejet 150 doesn’t support Wi-Fi, but you can connect to it using Bluetooth or a USB cable. You can print from Windows Phone, Android and BlackBerry devices, but the latter two need third-party apps.
We’re often critical of HP’s software interfaces, but the print drivers supplied with the Officejet 150 are near-perfect. The default tab contains shortcuts and simple options to cover most needs, and additional options are easy to find, but we’re less keen on the TWAIN scan interface. Selecting a resolution is too fiddly and it doesn’t remember the last settings you used, but it does offer more precise control than many HP products we’ve reviewed.


Unusually for an HP scanner you can actually change some reasonably advanced settings
When printing, the Officejet 150 managed a little less than half the speed we expect from a full-sized inkjet, managing 6.8ppm when printing high-quality black text. It was quite slow to print colour graphics, reaching only 1.8ppm on our test, but the results were indistinguishable from a typical good inkjet. Colours had plenty of impact, while blacks were crisp and bold. Photo prints were perfectly acceptable too, although borderless A4 printing isn’t supported. The only slight disappointment was repeated misfeeds when using the Fast Draft setting, and it couldn’t complete our draft text test.


The print driver’s shortcuts tab contains most of the settings you’ll ever need
Its scanner was very slow, needing one minute and 23 seconds to capture a single A4 image at 150dpi. This had a knock-on effect on photocopies, with a single page taking about 65 seconds for a single page to copy, whether colour or mono. We can’t complain about the quality of the results, however.
The Officejet 150 is expensive, but not unreasonable when you consider that the best single-function mobile scanners cost around £200. At less than 7p per page, its running costs aren’t too bad, either. It’s a shame scans and copies aren’t faster, but even so this is a unique product which delivers great results, earning itself a Business Buy award.