Olympus VG-170 Pro Reviews

At just £99.99, the VG-170 has enough clever kit, filters and features to make it an appealing-looking camera for those on a tighter budget. But if image quality, finer detail and tougher build are your bag, look elsewhere.

For those starting out in photography who want an undemanding, simple to use camera, the Olympus VG-170 fits the bill. In the main, exposure, metering, white balance and speed are all good enough for casual photographers for whom ease of use and features outweigh absolute image quality. However, anyone who wants any form of manual camera control or has exacting image quality standards would do better to look elsewhere. While many of the Olympus VG-170's novel features are fun to experiment with, the camera would be improved if it covered the basics better, rather than trying to do everything.

There are loads of similar digital compact cameras available for under £100, so it is good to see that Olympus have given the VG-170 a unique feature in the extra powerful flash. Image quality is pretty good if you can shoot at a lower ISO, which should generally be possible if you are happy to use the flash in low light conditions. Overall, for its money, the Olympus VG-170 is a decent buy.

What a surprise the little Olympus VG-170 has turned out to be. Not only is it a sexy little number but it also takes cracking pictures, and on top of that it's great fun to use. The design won't be for everyone because of the enormous flash that the body has to house but we respect Olympus for not simply making another rectanglular box. They've taken the opportunity to make something a little more creative. The zoom is modest at only 5x but we found that we didn't need any extra range for everyday shooting. Taking pictures is easy enough with the VG-170. We found that the Program mode will easily handle everything you throw at it and the Magic filters are great fun to use. Pictures come out nicely exposed while focusing is fast and sharp. We had great fun editing the pictures in-camera too. The beauty options in the main menu are great and family members enjoyed adding make-up to our self portraits. Of course that wasn't funny and they've now been destroyed but the features work very well such as face slimming and eye liner.