Review: Ricoh Caplio RR730 digital camera

A low-cost compact camera that’s simple enough for the first-time user

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Price: £129.99

Manufacturer: Ricoh

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Verdict

Pros: Price; easy to use; compact and light
Cons: Image quality; limited low-light ability
Overall: An inexpensive, yet well-built camera that’s very easy to use. But consider spending a little more if you’re after the best image quality

Paul Monckton, Personal Computer World 05 Mar 2007

We’ve recently been rather impressed with Ricoh’s digital compacts.

While they’re hardly the most stylish cameras on the market, they’ve had an uncanny knack of performing much better than we were expecting.

The Caplio RR730, is very much an entry-level point and shoot camera, designed to fit easily into your palm or pocket.

It doesn’t try to impress you with anti-shake functions or a huge zoom range and, while it doesn’t quite achieve the heights of ‘stylish’, it’s certainly tidy and well-constructed while remaining impressively light.

The back finds room for a full-sized 2.5in LCD panel, albeit with a rather low 115,000 pixels, with a menu system that’s pared down to the bare essentials. Unlike many cameras of this type, it’s not crammed full of features you’ll never use - making it very quick and easy to navigate.

While shooting you have a selection of six scene modes, including full auto, program, portrait, landscape, sports and night scene. It would have been nice to see a little more on-screen help describing how to use these settings, but they’re basic enough to get to grips with fairly quickly.

Flash mode, macro, self-timer and exposure compensation are all available directly from a four-way thumb pad, but settings such as white balance and ISO sensitivity must be changed from the menu. The latter is also restricted to the range 64 though to 200, giving the camera somewhat restricted low-light performance.

It comes with 32MB of internal memory and, although no SD memory card is supplied, we were pleased to note that the high-capacity SDHC cards are supported. Oddly, this was not mentioned in the specification.

We were a little disappointed with the image quality from the Caplio RR730. While it’s acceptable for snaps and even enlargements, other cameras such as Ricoh’s own Caplio R5, produced far better pictures from their seven megapixels, with considerably lower noise and better edge clarity.

With an RRP £129.99, the Caplio RR730 is certainly inexpensive for a seven-megapixel camera - you’ll also find it available for a lot less online. But keep in mind that because it uses standard AA batteries you won’t be getting a battery or charger included in the price.

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