Konica Minolta Dimage X31

Shrunken master. The super-small snapper with big ideas

No bigger than a pack of cigarettes, this camera miraculously sports a 3x zoom by folding the lens system inside the body. This means there's no ugly barrel protruding from the front - instead, a sliding cover glides across the lens during the brisk one-second start-up. Other features include automatic exposure (good news for novices), built-in flash, movie capture and special effects filters for framing and stitching shots. And just when you think this Konica Minolta has nothing else to give, you'll discover the image quality is very acceptable - we can even forgive the occasional purple fringing around highlights on some shots.