Sleek and sexy with a slim body and polished coloured metal the Sony DSC-TX5 is an exceptionally desirable camera. It looks like a fashionist camera, but it's actually as rugged as it is slinky; waterproof to 10 feet deep, freeze proof down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, shockproof to a 5 foot drop and dust-proof too. It's the equivalent of a page three model turning out to be a brain surgeon, well, maybe not, but you get the idea..

Despite it's small dimensions and distracting good looks it's very well made. Our only gripe is that it isn't especially easy to grip and if you’re using it skiing we had problems with the touch screen when wearing gloves, which means it's not really much cop for any snow related sports.

Check out our Sony TX5 pictures

Sony has equipped the Sony DSC-TX5's with an excellent feature set, with the necessary features for ease of use and good quality pictures without making it complicated.

The 10.2-megapixel compact features a handy 4x optical super-wide-angle lens and a 3inch LCD which is very large on such a small camera, yet bright too. It also features 720p HD movie capture and Intelligent Sweep Panorama, which combines a burst of images into very wide pictures.

There's a range of scene modes, the most impressive being Handheld Twilight, for low-light photography, which combines six successive frames into a single image and the camera's 10 frames per second shooting, which is really very fast. On the subject of speed, autofocus is impressively quick too. Bar not being good for gloved hands, the camera's touch screen is brilliant sensitive enough for it to work first time every time.

The Sony DSC might look like it ended up at tough camera camp by mistake but not only is it rugged enough for extreme conditions but that it takes great photos too. Low light performance is great, better than we've seen on other tough compact cameras. Generally, image quality is good, with pleasing vivid but realistic colours and reasonable sharpness . The Sony DSC-TX5 provides good results up to ISO 1600, which is above average. A brilliant compact camera, which is both good looking and super tough. Recommended.

Sony TX5 price: £250-£310, link Sony

Sony TX5 release date: Out now