Pros: Small; Good clear pictures in daylight; Good range of features.

Cons: Zoom lens is clunky and takes time to open; Pictures in low light are noisy; Features are hidden in the menus.

Bottomline: The EC1000 is a nice camera with good features but it offers little more than basics.

Manufacturer: BenQ

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The E1000 is a 10-megapixel camera with a 3in screen, which dominates the rear of its body. Alongside this sit the chunky zoom, playback and menu buttons, which despite their size sink into the body and were hard to press. One stand-out feature is the three-shot mode, which lets users take three versions of the same picture and pick the best.

However, like the anti-shake mode the option is hard to find: rather than using a dedicated buttons, the three-shot mode is hidden in the camera's menus. In low light it struggled to focus and the pictures were noisy. In better lighting, images were better, with strong, bright colours. We were also impressed with the face-detection.

The camera is slow, though: the lens took several seconds to open when the camera is switched on.
The E1000 is small and light and does its job, but for those looking for more quality in their pictures, it's not quite enough.