Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Checking Out This Fall's Gadgets: Pepcom's Holiday Spectacular Press Event
Posted by Janak Parekh in "EVENT" @ 03:30 PM

Figure 52: Casio Ultra-Slim EX-S100
Casio is well known for their ultra-slim cameras that were about the thickness of only a few business cards held together. The S100 is the new 3.2 MP digital camera that combines a 2.8x optical zoom in a camera body that is a mere 16.7mm thick -- a size previously only reserved for non-zoom cameras.

Figure 53: Casio EX-S100
Here you see the optics of the camera when actually on. It is incredible how they fold all of that into a tiny little body like that of the Exilim's. The unit also utilizes a ceramic lens. We didn't have time to take pictures, so we're not sure of the picture quality, but the unit is amazingly small.

Figure 54: Casio Ex-S100
Just a quick front shot of the camera. It is a very clean design. A perfect camera for those who are constantly on the go, but don't want to deal with the awful picture a cell phone camera takes. Janak is convinced this is his next camera.

Figure 55: Casio EX-Z55
The Casio EX-Z55 is their new 5MP camera. Suhit bought the Z40 for his sister about a year ago (i.e. the 4 MP predecessor to the EX-Z55) and if the Z40 was any indication, the Z55 will do very well. We were definitely impressed by the incredible battery life this camera offers, even with a tiny little battery like that in the Z55.

Figure 56: Casio EX-Z50
The Casio EX-Z50 is a camera very similar to the EX-Z55, except that is has a slightly lower battery life and only has a 2" LCD display instead of the 2.5" in the Z55, but at $100 less than the Z55. Casio had some interesting PowerPoint slides on explaining how they overcame some of the technical challenges of fitting such a large LCD in a camera the same size as the Z50.

Figure 57: Casio's Exilim Engine
On display was the chip that drives the Exilim cameras. They also had on display the chips they have used in the past (not pictured here) in their Exilim cameras and the miniaturization over the years was striking. Interestingly, Casio actually uses the same engine in all of their Exilim cameras.

Figure 58: Casio EX-S100 (bottom) vs. Canon Powershot S230
Here is a quick comparison shot featuring the new EX-S100 and Canon's Powershot S230 (which used to be, many years ago, the smallest 3MP camera on the market, but which looks like a brick in comparison).

Figure 59: Casio EX-S100 (left) vs. Canon Powershot S230 - side views
A side view of the two camera truly shows how much slimmer the S100 really is in relation to the S230.

Figure 60: Casio Exilim EX-P600
The EX-P600 is a larger 6MP unit that Casio has been selling since early 2004. It is supposed to be quite fast and take decent quality 6MP pictures, and features a 2" LCD screen.

Figure 61: Casio EX-P600 LCD
The 2" LCD is very nice. There were some complaints about the yellowness of the LCD screen in the Exilim Z40 which appear to have been fixed in this camera. In both this picture as well as the one above, Casio is showing off some of the software that is built in the camera to assist the amateur photographer. The above picture shows a large array of assistive areas that the user would scroll through. There is also a running histogram of the scene. In this picture, they are showing off what a user would actually see once they select one of the broad range of areas. Their assistant programs can also give side-by-side image comparisons with features turned on and off.

Figure 62: Full array of Casio Exilim Cameras
A final picture of the entire array of Casio Exilim products.









