There arent many reviews of Vivitar digicams out there at the moment, for the simple reason that they are generally of quite poor quality and usually not worth reviewing; this camera makes a pleasing departure from this trend. For those Vivitar fanatics out there, this camera (and in fact, all recent Vivicams) is NOT made by Vivitar; they are made by a company called Premier out of Asia, Vivitar simply rebrands them.

I found the camera very easy to use, a bit battery-hungry but overall not too bad. Picture quality is (predictably, at this price) a bit of a let-down, with a lot of noise on most indoor photos at any lighting level... the simple fact is you get a cheap, noisy CCD sensor. The noise-reduction and sharpening software on the camera is also pretty gruesome, leading to lots of colour-noise and big black holes on High Sharpness along edges and contrast lines. The camera actually takes photos like a 4MP camera, which leads me to believe this is a 4MP design with a 6MP sensor stuck in it for marketing purposes; the lenses and software simply cannot make full use of the sensor. One piece of good news is that when connected to the PC, the camera is a pure USB Mass Storage device; it doesnt lumber you with a cumbersome 3rd party interface program.

What You Get:
Easy point-and-shoot
Good size and quite light
Fast startup, fast capture
ISO, White Balance, Metering, Sharpness/Saturation and Exposure controls
A passable 3x optical zoom
A camera you're not afraid to break

What You Dont Get:
9-point AF
RGB/Lum histograms
Reliable picture quality (decent outside, terrible inside)
Battery efficiency
A camera for those special moments

The last points in each basically sum up this camera: at £50 you can take it places you wouldnt dare bring a £200 camera, but conversely the pictures you take are not of enduring quality. They are *just* passable for printing at 8 x 10, any higher and the big blobs of colour are just too much to bear.

If you want a cheap camera to take on a camping holiday, this is perfect. If you want to take photos of your daughter's wedding and show all the family, forget it.