Touchscreen compacts are beginning to making their presence felt - they look classy, with next to no buttons, and big, beautiful screens for viewing your photos.

Nikon has a big job ahead if it's to better Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T77. We were mightily impressed with the DSC-T77 in our recent First Look, especially the quick response touch menus, and the impressive macro photography and lowlight ability. It's no toy.

Nikon's S60 is a similar beast, though with a couple of key differences. We also have a few quibbles after playing with this camera.

The Specs
First the specs. On paper, the S60 is a worthy rival to the S60, with 10MP vs 10.1 for the Sony, and a large 3.5in screen vs the Sony's smaller 3in screen. The S60 weighs a tad heavier at 145g, vs 126g for the Sony (without battery), and comes with a range of scene modes, and 5X zoom, verse 4 for the Sony. Interestingly, the Nikon matches the Sony with up to ISO3200, though this is reserved for images sizes of 5M of smaller.

Sleek design. Nikon's COOLPIX S60 comes in black, red, pink or white.

LCD display
Our biggest gripe with the Nikon is the LCD screen itself, which to our eye looks grainier than the Sony. Photos taken under indoor fluorescent lighting look pixilated, even at relatively high file sizes, and don't do justice to the camera's picture ability.

Menus responsive, thought not as slick as Sony
Again, the S60's are simple enough for most people to understand, though there was the odd occasion we found ourselves getting lost looking for settings.

Zoom is handled by visual "W" and "T" onscreen button, and everything is reasonably responsive. Playback and macro features are easily selected by icons on the left hand side of the screen.

It's a minor quibble, but the onscreen menus, as with the display of images, doesn't look as sharp, or as slick as what you see on Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T77.

HDMI, but no HD video
One advantage the Nikon has over the Sony is an HDMI port, which could come in handy if you have a big HF television for displaying photos in high detail.

Unlike some more expensive cameras though, Nikon is not pushing high-definition video recording with the S60, something you can try with Sony's more expensive HDMI-equipped Cyber-shot T500 for $649.

A sample macro image taken with the Nikon COOLPIX S60, under ordinary household lighting.

A comparison macro image taken with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77. The picture was taken of the same subject, under similar lighting, Note how close the subject is in the photo, and the level of detail.

No Macro wow-moments
Again, the S60's macro function does the job, but it's not a patch on the results we got with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77. The Sony blew us away with fine detail pictures under poor household lighting, with the camera so close it was touching the subject, while the Nikon didn't let us get as close, and the resulting detail wasn't as good.