The cold and snow of recent days may put a halt to Christmas plans, but provides a great opportunity for photographers. Conventional compact cameras aren’t designed to be used in freezing temperatures, instead you really need a dedicated tough and freezeproof camera.

At 24mm deep and weighing in at 215g, the Olympus Tough-8010 is on the bulky side by today's standards, but boy is it well made and not actually bad looking either, with a square, basic but not unattractive looking body, with a high-polished metal plate on the front.

Build quality is second to none; we wouldn't be surprised if this robust toughie was actually bullet proof. It's made with anodised aluminium plating and features double sealing, has a stronger metal lens barrier than you usually get and even features a double lock mechanism on the cover for the battery, memory slot and ports. So, top marks for build, it feels reassuringly weighty in the hands and can be used easily with gloves thanks to the simple and well placed layout of the buttons.

Olympus Tough-8010: Features

Olympus is well known for their Tough compacts and 8010 has a feature set that will make adrenalin junkies and extreme sports fans whoop with excitement: Waterproof to 10 meters, shockproof to 2 meters, freeze-proof to -10 degrees, and it's even crushproof to 100kg!

Elsewhere the 14MP compact has a wide 5x zoom, HD video shooting and a range of shooting features including in-camera panorama (great for all those mountain scenes), magic filters, a handy in-camera manual and photo surfing software. It features tap control too but this is one point we have to knock it on, we just didn't find this feature sensitive enough and although it can cope you didn't like having to hit it so hard...We were especially impressed however with the 2.7inch LCD which resisted reflection is all conditions.

The Olympus Tough-8010 provides decent quality photographs and video. Although image quality isn't as big a pull as the camera tough build, it does produces better quality images than the majority of its tough peers, which is good news. Detail is fine but niggles are that colours aren't vivid and images are a little softer than we'd expect. ISO performance is average too, usable up to 800.  Ultimately for a skiing holiday or just for snapping the current weather, this is a really strong offering.

Olympus Tough 8010 launch date: Out now, link Olympus

Olympus Tough 8010 price: £220-£270 online