Home > Consumer Reviews > Casio Exilim Z4 Digital Camera [4MP 3xOptical]

I did soooo much research before buying my digital camera, including buying Digital Computer Buyer magazine, but most useful of all was the reviews on Amazon, so I wanted to add mine. I was looking for a small camera with good picture quality, short video capacity and some manual functions, both to take pictures of my kids, and also to take photos of sufficient quality to put on the websites I build professionally. It was a toss up between the Fuji F700 and the Casio Exilim in the end, although I also was tempted by the Olympus Mju series.

Anyway I decided on the Casio, and although I don't have much to compare it with apart from a Fuji Finepix S3000, I have not regretted my decision in any way. The camera looks beautiful, and really is tiny. It has a metal case and feels expensive!

The screen on the back is the best I have seen and I hardly ever use the viewfinder. I was able to start taking pictures straightaway although I did also print out the pdf manual because the camera does have so many settings and I feel I am only scratching the surface with it. You can use the snapshot function or one of their pre-sets, and you can even save your own favourite settings.

Night shots are really superb, much better than the Fuji camera I used. The camera is very light sensitive. The movie mode is all I need, and I even managed to capture a ballet performance on a stage quite a way away from me. My favourite mode is the macro without flash, and the pictures I have taken look professional.

I would say don't bother to download the software to download your pictures onto the computer if you have any sort of picture editing software like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop - it isn't very good unless you want to make rudimentary webpages. The docking station simply shows itself on the computer as a removable disk.

The last thing I would say is that I didn't want the delay when taking photos which you seem to get with a lot of digital cameras - well with this one there is no delay at all, unless you are taking pictures under very low light conditions. The battery lasts well. As the other reviewers have said though - do buy a 128Mb card to go with the camera. I bought a bytestor SD one from Amazon and it seems just fine.

All in all I think this is a superb purchase.

HISTORY
Well, after much umming and arring, I decided to upgrade from my trusty Fuji Finepix 2800 (A great camera by the way!) My main criteria being I wanted something more compact, and easy to use, also the picture quality had to match or better the 2800.

THE COMPETITION
My choices from the current market place were, "Canon Isux i", "Pentax Optio S4", "Casio Exilim Z4" and "Minolta DiMage Xt".
The Canon had NO OPTICAL ZOOM which is a big negative, the Minolta is bad shape, and has bad reviews for picture quality. This left the Optio and the Casio. The prices were similar, but although the Optio was smaller I chose the Casio becasue of the larger screen and the rave reviews. The lens is the same on both cameras (Pentax Lens)

POSITIVES
With the Exilim, I have found the size incredible, the screen is clear, the picture quality is excellent, the cradle and li-ion battery clinched the deal for me. I have windows XP and had pictures on my computer within 5mins.
The cradle is very easy to use, and the battery life is very good. I found the options for best picture very easy to use, and the camera becomes very intuitive to use withing 30 mins of playing. Also there are some great sound effects (Which I turned off after 30 mins to save battery life - and to stop my Fiance throwing the camera out the window!)

NEGATIVES
The ONLY negative I have is the lack of included memory card. The 10MB internal memory will hold about 10 medium res pictures! You can buy 128mb Multimedia Card (MMC) or Secure Digital (SD) card for about £30 if you look hard enough! (Yes the camera will use both formats!) And this will hold many many more!

CONCLUSION
If you are looking for a high quality, compact, fun, feel-good, easy to use camera, then I would highly recommend this camera!

An early Christmas present to myself, I decided that I was long overdue a digital camera. after trauling through various sites i decided on DCC, and the service I received from them was excellent. The camera is easy to use, light and seemingly well made, and also looks better in real life than it does on the web site! I continue to be impressed by the battery life - After using a friends old canon IXUS, the battery in this one seems to go on forever. The 2" screen was one of the reasons I chose this model, and while I agree that the image can be a little less than perfect photo-quality, it is perfectly good enough to use. The camera has plenty of features for me to play with when I get a bit more adventurous than full-auto-point-and-click, and the manual explaining all of this seems to be pretty easy to understand and thorough (although a printed version would have been nice...) While I'm no camera enthusiast, in my opinion the quality of the image this camera gives is also fine and I have no criticisms there at all. Overall, I'm completely happy with my purchase so far, and would recommend it to anyone looking for this class of camera. Ok so it may be a tiny bit bigger than an Optio S4 or a Canon IXUS 400, but its getting to the point where it really doesn't matter - surely once you get to the 'top-pocket-size' threshold, any smaller becomes a matter of ego rather than convenience... If you're going to get one of these, I wouldn't even necessarily suggest getting an extra battery (as is often recommended), although a memory card is a must (the 128mb one in mine seems to be more than enough for a weeks holiday photos). A case is also handy, but other than that you should have all you need to be one of those annoying friends who takes their camera out everywhere with them...

I've been looking for this camera for weeks now and finally managed to purchase it, and after the long wait, I'm glad to say it doesn't let me down.

Going off looks this camera would win any beauty contest, however looks aren't all this camera has to offer. The size is just about perfect, even if you have large fingers the buttons are set out just right, however pressing the ones TOO close to the screen that bit too hard, does tend to distort the TFT screen, but at 2 inches theres loads of it to see anyway.

Battery life is fine, and it takes around 2 hours to fully charge a flat one, but get another!

Quality of pictures is great, even highly zoomed in the picture is still crisp and clear.

Sound recording is ok not the clearest you've ever heard but still fine for a camera, Video is limated to 60 seconds with sound, but is very smooth. and the zoom is just right for a camera this small.

Supplied software is adequate! but don't expect anything that good, use paintshop pro or the like.

The supplied 10MB internal memory is ok to mess about with at first but soon you'll need to get a sd card a 256 will be easily enough for a 2 week holiday even on max resolution.

Comparing this to the Pentax Optio S4 the S4 IS smaller but I would say TOO small much easier to drop.

The only thing that lets it down is the lack of a supplied travel charger, meaning you have to charge the battery while its in the camera, thus stopping you using it. However for another £40 you can buy a very small seperate charger.

Would I reccomend this to other people. Yes for looks, build quality, size and features the Exilim is a good choice.

I was upgrading from my Finepix A201 and had a shorlist of the usual suspects the IXUS 400 and the Pentax Optio S4. I actually ordered the IXUS 400 but couldn't get on with it, and Amazon were brilliant at giving me a refund. Congrats to Amazon! The Optio S4 is small and well equipped but I couldn't get to grips with the screen menu and it felt too light and toy-like. I was initially reluctant to buy a camera from a watch maker! but fell in love with the huge screen and excellent build quality and feel of the casio. The screen menu is idiot proof and I haven't needed to read the full PDF instruction manual yet. Great camera.