ACER CS-5530 review

Acer's CS-5530 may look expensive, but at £179 it's one of the cheapest 5-megapixel cameras available. The metallic body feels solid and the buttons firm. Up front is a 3x zoom lens, which is the minimum we would expect in a camera at this price.

The CS-5530 is light enough to carry in a shirt pocket and, despite its angular design, is reasonably comfortable to use. The controls lie under your fingers, although the direction pad is a little small for the ham-fisted.

The CS-5530 lacks an optical viewfinder, so you have to use the bright and clear 2.5" LCD to compose shots. Photos are generally well balanced and colours reasonably faithful. Noise was evident in some of our darker test shots, though, and not all the pictures were as sharp as we would expect. With a maximum resolution of 2,584x1,936, photos have enough detail to be printed up to A4 with no pixelation.

With an ISO range of 50 to 200, the CS-5530 isn't as sensitive as most cameras in this class. This means that low-light shots without a flash require longer exposures and can turn out blurred. The flash, when used, tends to be too strong, which results in over-exposed objects in the foreground of pictures. All metering is automatic, but you can adjust white balance and exposure manually.

Acer generously provides a 64MB SD card with the CS-5530, which is more than enough to get you started, although we would still recommend higher-capacity cards.

The CS-5530 is not a bad product. Shots are acceptable, although not stunning. However, those looking for clearer and more detailed photos can get more from Pansonic's Lumix DMC-LS1 (reviewed on page 36).

Author: David McKinnon