Casio H5 Budget Superzoom Camera Announced

Casio Exilim H5 MARCHANDS €     Amazon.fr m...  49.90  Batterieland  59.00  Rue du comm...  89.00  Compare prices

Casio recently presented its new Exilim EX-H5, an entry-level compact with a 10x zoom and a suggested retail price of £150.

Casio's new budget superzoom camera fits neatly into the brand's compact camera range, just under the H15 (priced at around £200), and therefore replacing the H10, a top-of-the range model from 2009 that's now being sold off at a much-reduced price.

Like other cameras in the Exilim H series, the Casio H5 has a 24-240 mm, f/3.2-5.7 zoom lens. The sensor is a 12-Megapixel CCD (compared with the H15's 14 Megapixels), which is stabilised by movement of the sensor.

The main area in which Casio seems to have made its savings is in the camera body. On the visuals we received, the casing looks slightly less robust than on other Exilims, and the H5 only has a 2.7-inch screen with 230,000 dots. The battery also seems to have been downgraded, holding out for just 240 photos (by CIPA standards), which is a pretty bog-standard performance considering that previous H-range models stood out for their huge battery lives (1,000 photos for the H10 and H15). Finally, video is filmed in 720p HD with mono sound.

Casio will now have three different models with a 10x zoom: the H5, H15 (14-Megapixel CCD, 460,000-dot screen and high-capacity battery) and the FH100 (10-Megapixel backlit CMOS sensor with high-speed functionality). The range may therefore seem more balanced than those of some other manufacturers.

However, it remains to be seen whether the problems we noticed with the H10 lens (accuracy, chromatic aberration) have been corrected in Casio's other two models. And as the FH100 has just arrived here in our offices, we may find out sooner than expected.

The Casio Exilim H5 will be released on 15 June in the UK with a suggested retail price of £150.

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