...Nikon compact digital cameras?

Dude, have you seen them lately?
They're not exactly the prettiest things you'll see on the shelf. Sit one right next to the Kwanons and the Sonys and $100 says I know which ones you'll be staring at. First of all, the Coolpix 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 series cameras look like squares from the front. And they're not very slim either.
This whole issues reminds me of the time when Dell was still producing bricks for laptops while Fujitsu and Toshiba were already churning out sleek beauties. It was only much later that Dell finally realized that they were losing sales because of portability. DOH!


Back to the Nikons... Well about 2 years ago they came up with the Coolpix SQ which I thought was pretty cool. Swivel lens and really tiny too. But Minolta came along with their tiny giant, the Dimage Xt, which totally stole the show. Nikon announced late last year that they are officially pulling out of the 35mm market and heading totally towards the digital realm. That of course only applies to the point-and-shoot camera department. Really, if they are so daring as to make the leap across, they had better think about working on some eye-candy.

Notice how superficial this subject is? I'm only talking about looks and ergonomics here. But the fact of the matter is, people want digital cameras that they can talk about, show off and make people go "cool!". Sadly, Nikon has yet to come up with a selling point related to design.

Minolta came up with the revolutionary internal zoom lens, which was incorporated into the Dimage X-series cameras. Casio just came up with ceramic lenses that make their cameras a whole lot slimmer. Sony decided to slap their new line of digital cameras with huge LCD screens (DSC-T1 and DSC-W1). The only thing I see Nikon priding themselves in is the "In-Camera Red-eye Fix (TM)" function, which I frankly dont give a hoot about.

I got acquainted with the relatively new Nikon Coolpix 4100 at Circuit City last week. I can see that Nikon is taking steps to make their cameras more compact. This particular model is pretty slim. But the only problem is, Nikon made it too curvaceous, making it a nightmare to hold on to. Hope they come with some sort of handstrap. It didnt take me long to wander over to the Sony section and pick up the Sony DSC-W1 which i eventually purchased from Dell.



I have a feeling that Nikon might be putting too much emphasis on the SLR-style P&S cameras like the 8800, 8700 and the 5700. With the introduction of the 8800 the prices of the earlier models are tumbling like nobody's business. Frankly, the 5700's control responsiveness was rubbish. I havent tried the 8700, but I heard they have made more improvements, and the 8800 is basically the 8700 with the addition of Nikon's famed Vibration Reduction system.

If Nikon wants to get a bigger share of the consumer-level market, they better fire that Nakazawa dude and get Steve Jobs to do an "Apple revival" on them.