Olympus µ-9010 review

With its 10x optical zoom and slim design, the µ-9010 seems like a very flexible camera for taking a wide range of shots. On paper it’s a promising contender to the other compact ultra-zoom cameras, weighing less than its rivals and costing less than most too.

There’s a dedicated record button for the 720p video mode, which produced sharp details and impressively little noise in low light, while AVC compression kept file sizes down. The zoom and focus was fixed for the duration of clips, though, and the soundtrack was lacking in bass.

We’re relieved to see that Olympus has abandoned the xD card format and gone with SDHC, which is both faster and cheaper. The 1.8GB internal capacity is welcome too, although a 2GB SD card only costs £5 these days.

The camera isn’t much of a performer, with three seconds between shots and longer for telephoto zoom settings where the autofocus sometimes struggled. It’s the animated interface that slows this camera down more than anything. For example, adjusting the exposure compensation brings up a carousel of live preview images on the screen to demonstrate each setting, but this makes cycling through them tediously slow.

Sadly, the µ-9010 failed to compete when it came to image quality. The 10x zoom isn’t as ambitious as the 12x, 14x and 15x zooms offered by competing cameras, but to make matters worse, focus was often a little soft at telephoto zoom settings.

The needlessly high-resolution sensor boosted noise more than details. Photos at the base ISO 64 setting were reasonably smooth but higher ISO speeds produced grubby results. We also found that the souped-up colour palette tended to produce overly warm skin tones. This was sometimes quite flattering for pastier complexions but other people looked like they’d been Tangoed.

As with many Olympus compact cameras we’ve seen in recent months, the µ-9010 does nothing to embarrass itself but its image quality falls some way behind the frontrunners.