Last Updated December 9, 2008   Product Rating   Large 3-inch LCD display Excellent image quality & is fast Shutter lag is minimal-to-none Built-in Wi-Fi   Using Wi-Fi to send photos reduces their quality to 2MP

One of Nikon's latest digital cameras is the Nikon Coolpix S610c, which is a point-and-shoot camera that works out quite well for users out there due to its excellent indoor and outdoor photo quality as well built-in Wi-Fi. Its other features include a 10-megapixel resolution and a 3-inch LCD display on the back.

To start off, the body of the Nikon Coolpix S610c is a black brushed aluminum, which really looks nice and makes it feel sturdy too, which we like. On the top of the S610c, there's a very large shutter-release button, which is perfect for those of you with small fingers and don't want to press the wrong button. There's also a small power button on the top as well, and on the right-side is the A/V output. On the back, there a huge 3-inch LCD display and a scroll wheel for navigation and a few other menu-related buttons as well. All of the buttons are placed in a well-thought out manner and are easy to use in our opinion.

The Nikon Coolpix S610c offers a huge and vibrant 3-inch LCD on the back and well-placed and sizes buttons that make navigation easy.

The built-in Wi-Fi on the Coolpix S610c is pretty cool in the sense of what it does. If you have a Wi-Fi enabled smartphone or computer when you while you're taking pictures, you can set it up to automatically send the photos taken with the camera straight to your mobile device or computer. You can wirelessly e-mail photos to anyone you want and when the recipient receives an e-mail with a photo, they will be sent a link to your photo online at Nikon's "My Picturetown", which is their online photo gallery of which you get 2GB free storage. ($2.99/month to upgrade to 20GB). One caveat to using the Wi-Fi feature on the camera is when they are transmitted, the camera reduces them to 2-megapixel resolution, which can cut down on the image quality. Otherwise, it's a great feature to e-mail friends and family photos on-the-fly without much hassle.

The shooting mode options on the camera are pretty good, but a little lacking for more advanced control. You have the usual shooting modes for indoor, outdoor & weather conditions, macro/micro-mode, and such. It also includes face detection and smile shutter, which are both nice features to have in a point-and-shoot consumer camera.

For more of the hardcore specs of this camera, the S610c takes pictures at 10-megapixel resolution in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The lens on this model is well-suited with a 4x optical zoom and a focal range of 5 to 18.9mm. The lens is a little wider than most other competitor cameras, so this allows you to have a little more room to the left and right sides in your photos.

The average time from power-on to first picture is around 1.40 seconds (which is very fast and way ahead of other similar cameras) and the time between shots is near 3.45 seconds, which isn't slow, but it isn't quick either. Shutter lag is minimal and under a half-second, which is fantastic and a huge plus for capturing those action shots. In addition to that, low-light conditions, which are usually poor for point-and-shoot cameras, didn't cause any loss in image quality with the Coolpix S610c. Outdoor pictures in both bright sun and shadows were very clear and well-lit. Due to the wider lens, there will be some lens distortion, but that's to be as expected and minimal at the most.

Overall, the Nikon Coolpix S610c is a solid point-and-shoot camera that it small and compact, but yet is still powerful. It has a lot of nice features, from the 3-inch LCD to the 10-megapixel resolution and built-in Wi-Fi, makes it a camera well-worth a look if you're in the market to purchase a point-and-shoot camera.