How much? Never mind what the LX-1 costs, just see what it does – yes, it’s pricey, but boy is it worth it

With its slim dimensions, the FinePix F700 is almost the odd one out in this test. It’s certainly no IXUS, but the F700 will still fit into your pocket and the brushed metal casing looks the part. But the main reason the F700 costs more than the bigger S5000 is because of the new Super CCD SR. Instead of one photodiode per pixel, this fourth-generation CCD has two: a high-sensitivity one for shadows and mid-tones, and a low-sensitivity one for highlights. Fujifilm claims this gives a greater dynamic range, aiding tricky lighting situations by capturing shadow detail without bleaching out highlights.

The PowerShot G series has earned Canon a good reputation and, thankfully, the G5 does nothing to dent it. Not that it will win awards for styling, as the G5 remains slightly boxy for our liking and the casing has more plastic than the G3. It also feels every gram of its 487g weight; the similarly heavy Fuji S5000 is more comfortable to hold and use.

The Nikon Coolpix 5400 is the descendent of the Coolpix 5000. In the revamp, it has gained a new 1/1.8in CCD and 4x optical zoom but also loses a couple of useful features, like the LCD status panel and RAW file mode. True, there is a TIFF option, but this is a backwards move in our view.

Sony’s high-end cameras have consistently impressed us at PC Authority, but just recently they’ve fallen short of Labs Winner status. The DSC-F717 changes all that, with its heady mix of image quality, features and design propelling it to the top of the pile.

Using a Canon lens and sharing a chunky, rectangular design, the 5-megapixel QV-5700 bears more than a passing resemblance to the PowerShot G5. The G5 has a 4x optical zoom against Casio’s 3x, though, and several other features, such as time-lapse shooting, are missing.

The 5-megapixel DSC-V1 offers a great combination of features and performance in a relatively small body. While it’s smaller than its prime competitors – the Canon G5 and the Nikon 5400 – there are even smaller models in this month’s company.

Hewlett Packard's new digital camera takes many steps in the right direction to introduce professional-level features for the consumer photographer, yet suffers from a few, minor flaws that detract from its overall polished design.

Sony's DSC-FX77 has some really nifty features, including the addition of Bluetooth connectivity.

The DiMAGE F300 is a 5.3-megapixel camera, with a built-in 3x optical zoom, 32MB of internal memory, and support for SD and MMC media. It's a camera that allows a good deal of control of exposure, colour, contrast, saturation, and white balance and also features a noise reduction system.

Just another 4-megapixel camera is what we expected when we opened the box and pulled out the Nikon Coolpix 4500, but this beauty soon proved us wrong.

Once the lens shutters are opened, the Canon PowerShot S50 powers up and welcomes you with a tone. Similar to the smaller Canon IXUS 400 in terms of features, it too ships with a 32MB CF card and AV cables. With fairly easy to navigate menus, the S50 also features video capture and a thumb-sliding preview mode.

A sexy magnesium-alloy housing gives the IXUS 400 one of the most compact camera bodies submitted this month. The bright 118,000-pixel LCD gives an excellent preview of your images or for shot placement when not using the viewfinder.

The Camedia C-5050 is a 5.3-megapixel camera offering a good balance of automatic and manual settings, catering for users who like a professional look and feel. It also offers USB connectivity, separate status LCD, optical resolution of 2,560 x 1,920, support for RAW output format and video-out.

The HP PhotoSmart 850 has a huge protruding lens, and a fairly fast-responding display and a clever feature that turns off either the viewfinder or the LCD if not required (depending on which one you're using at the time).

Aimed at the outdoor snapper who wants good quality digital images, the Caplio 300G is a straightforward 3-megapixel compact camera, with a few useful extras built in.

HP is better known for printers than it is for digital cameras but it has discovered a new talent that must be sending a shiver down the spine of more traditional camera makers such as Canon, Olympus and Nikon.

It serves a real purpose considering many holiday happy-snappers will prefer an easy shot from the hip.

The Fujifilm FinePix 40i is one of a new breed that will perform both still and video capture as well as accommodate playback of MP3 digital audio

The first thing that stood out with this camera is the absolutely massive 2in LCD display