Olympus X-880: Pick a card

By Rich Trenholm on 20 January 2009, 12:11pm

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We don't expect much from compact cameras: there's hundreds of them out there, all small and portable, with the same specs and the same problems. As a result, we're always pleased to come across a pocket-friendly model that stands out from the crowd. The Olympus X-880, exclusive to Jessops, does exactly that.

The X-880 sports straightforward styling in its compact form, but a closer look reveals some neat details, like a hatch for USB, instead of a flappy rubber cover. The menu and screen brightness have a cool scalloped effect, although the back has a slightly cluttered feel, with several different styles of button on one model.

The specs aren't bad at all: it may be only an 8-megapixel affair, but you do get a 5x zoom, optical image stabilisation, 16-person face detection and movie recording.

Admittedly, the X-880 records to the decreasingly popular xD memory card format, rather than SD. But what's really caught our attention is the option to record to microSD, via a bundled adaptor. We've long been in awe of the magic of microSD, and we're pretty sold on the idea of using the same card in your phone as in your camera. It's not as easy as SD, but it's still better than xD and, hey, look at the blinkin' size of it!