Death Match: Panasonic FX500 VS Ricoh R8 review

Two big-zooming, ten-meg compacts for your consideration

Call us picky but we like tiny, compact things - our monthly wage packets, for instance - but we expect them to be just as capable as their full-sized counterparts.These cameras, f'rinstance.

Underneath the svelte metal bodies of the Panasonic FX500 and the Ricoh R8 we expect to find powerful electronics and finely-honed optics lurking.

We want a glut of scene modes (night, fireworks, igloo at twilight), ten-meg sensors, plenty of zoom and manual controls galore so we can lighten, darken, sharpen, tweak and buff our photos to digital perfection. These are both tiny and pack a punch, but which one's going to be the big hit?

Death match 1: Ease of Use

Panasonic FX500

The touchscreen feels a bit tacked on and doesn't do much. It's not awful as such, but you end up using the menu and fiddly joystick for most things. The screen's also not quite as sharp as the Ricoh.

Ricoh R8

Ricoh's wisely avoided slapping on a touchscreen here. Instead you get an exceptional, high-res, 2.7-inch screen with bags of detail. The Ricoh also has a far smoother, nodule-shaped joystick control.

Winner: Ricoh R8

Death match 2: Features

Panasonic FX500

With a 25mm wide-angle, 5x zoom lens, the FX500 is perfect for landscape shots. You also get full control over aperture and shutter, an excellent image stabiliser and the current must-have, face detection.

Ricoh R8

Ricoh serves up a very generous, 28mm, wide-angle, 7x optical zoom. Face detection's here and loads of other tweaks, but without shutter or aperture priority, there's less manual control than the FX500.

Winner: Panasonic FX500

Death match 3: Picture quality

Panasonic FX500

Pictures are sharp, if a touch darker than the Ricoh, so there's less fine detail in shadowy areas. Macro mode is terrific, producing realistic pics from 5cm. Movie mode is decent but you can't zoom.

Ricoh R8

Macro mode is even better than the Panasonic, getting as close as 1cm but pictures, though excellent, are less pleasing, seeming a little soft. You can zoom in movie mode, though, albeit in a staggered way.

Winner: Ricoh R8

Death match 4: Price

Panasonic FX500

The best price we could find trawling through London's East End markets was a wallet whopping £330

Ricoh R8

Coming in at a much more wage saving £250

Winner:Ricoh R8

The verdict

The Panasonic is a sexy compact bursting with tech, sporting an attractive yet slightly pointless touchscreen and a little too pricey. If you can live without the features, the R8 is far more user-friendly than the Panasonic and a cracking, reasonably priced compact.

Winner: Ricoh R8