BenQ may not be the first company that springs to mind when thinking about digital cameras. You might even have difficulty tracking down some BenQ cameras in the shops or online.

But the BenQ DC C1050 has quietly sidled into the budget end of the market with a whopping 10-megapixel resolution. These 10-megapixel cameras are still far from the norm and usually command a premium price, yet the DC C1050 is priced low. So, what's the catch? If you want a simple point-and-shoot, there isn't one--but you do have to consider how badly you want features.

Design of the BenQ DC C1050 Digital Camera

The DC C1050 is a chunky beast. It feels pretty weighty, mainly due to the two AA batteries providing the juice. The right-hand side of the camera is flared to accommodate the batteries, and makes it easy to grip. The front of this flared area has a leather effect, which combines with the black and silver styling to give the DC C1050 a classy, slightly retro look.

The buttons are a tasteful matte silver. Functions are controlled by a squared click pad with a slightly hollowed-out shape that's really satisfying to use. There's a menu button for changing settings, and a dedicated button for changing shooting modes.

The delete button doubles up as a shortcut key to alter your exposure settings or select aperture or shutter priority. This is a great feature, as it gives you a greater degree of manual control over your photographs than most compacts.

The screen is the standard 64mm (2.5-inch) size but feels bigger because of a black bezel surrounding it. We'd have preferred it if the space was filled with more screen, though.

Features of the BenQ DC C1050 Digital Camera

The DC C1050 is fairly light on features. Only the bare essentials are included, so there's no face detection or optical image stabilization. This camera takes photos and shoots video and that's about it.

There is a reasonable amount of manual controls: Aperture and shutter-priority settings are easily accessed. You can choose from center, multi or spot-weighted metering, and there are no less than five white balance presets, including a setting for cloudy days. Pictures are saved to SD cards.

Playback mode is similarly straightforward. The option to show your pictures in a slideshow is perfect for when the camera is connected to a television, with a range of flashy transitions to choose from. You can also set one of your own photos as the start-up image to replace the BenQ logo that appears when you turn the camera on.

On the plus side, the lack of features makes the DC C1050 easy to operate. There are only two menus controlling shooting options and camera setup, respectively, so you won't spend all your time hunting through the interface.

As well as 2- and 10-second self-timer options, the DC C1050 offers a double shot mode that counts down from 10 and then takes two pictures a couple of seconds apart. All the self-timer options include a cool onscreen countdown.

Performance of the BenQ DC C1050 Digital Camera

Start-up time is reasonably quick once you've turned off the start-up image. The camera freezes just a little too long after taking a picture, making it slightly difficult to take pictures in quick succession. This is improved if you turn off the option to review each picture for three seconds after it's captured, which isn't a very helpful feature anyway as you can't delete the image if you don't like it.

Burst mode cranks out a slightly asthmatic 0.5 frames per second but will happily continue taking pictures for several minutes. Our model only stopped when the 1GB memory card was full after 5 minutes of continuous snapping. The screen unfortunately goes black while it's capturing images, so you need to compose your images carefully before hitting the shutter. This does seem to defeat the point of using the burst mode to capture sport or movement, as you're unable to follow the action onscreen.

Battery life isn't great, but the advantage of AA batteries is that they're easily available. You won't ever be caught out without a charger when the batteries give out.

Image quality of the BenQ DC C1050 Digital Camera

Picture quality on the DC C1050 is good. Detail isn't quite as crisp as you might expect from a 10-megapixel camera, but it still produces strong images. There's some evidence of purple fringing on high-contrast areas, but it's not severe. Our only real criticism is that colors feel somewhat muted, and there's no option to alter the color settings or boost the saturation.

ISO levels start at 50, and go up to 1,000. Noise appears at ISO 400 but is acceptable even up to 1,000. At its maximum sensitivity, images are grainy but are not as horrifically smeared as images produced by some other compacts at similar settings.

The DC C1050 performs well in low light, although you're better off avoiding the digital image stabilization mode and using shutter priority to set a slightly slower shutter speed coupled with a lower ISO. Noise is a problem in darker conditions at ISO 1,000 but settings of 200 and 400 are relatively untroubled by unsightly speckles.

Conclusion

The BenQ DC C1050 is a straightforward, chunky compact. It won't win any prizes for styling or innovation, but it's tasteful, reliable and simple to use.

The most distinguished feature is the continuous mode, which isn't supersonic, but will merrily snap all day.