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Budget cameras are broadly divided into metal-clad models costing over £100 and plastic ones for less, but the JX300 bucks the trend with its metal body and £80 price. Its lens is well specified for the price too, with a 5x zoom range and f/2.6 maximum aperture, which lets in a little more light than its rivals’ lenses. The mode dial is another welcome surprise, providing quick access to photo, video and various scene modes. However, this camera lacks the optical stabilisation that pricier models use to counteract camera shake.
It’s reasonably responsive, taking a photo every 2.2 seconds, but all other buttons become inactive until photos have finished saving. That meant we had to wait for around four seconds after taking a photo before we could begin to adjust any settings. The menus are sparsely populated, with no metering modes and few autofocus options, although the ability to track not just faces but any object could prove useful. Text descriptions are used to explain certain settings, but some didn’t stay on screen long enough for us to read them.
A 720p video mode is great at this price but clips are limited to less than 10 minutes. Picture quality was decent, except for some heavy barrel distortion at wide-angle zoom positions. Sound quality was a little boxy, and after enabling optical zoom for videos in the Setup menu, the soundtrack was muted whenever we adjusted the zoom control.
Barrel distortion was visible when composing photos too, and also in the instant review function, but thankfully it had disappeared (with the help of digital processing) in the final saved images. Digital processing wasn’t able to rescue the poor corner focus, though, and the heavy noise reduction required to handle the 14-megapixel sensor’s output made some photos resemble an oil painting when viewed up close. The camera picked sensible settings in low light to avoid blur, but without stabilisation, this meant high ISO speeds that generated even more noise.
Image quality is a little below average, but the JX300’s smart metal body and low price keep it in the running for those on a strict budget.
