Review: Nikon S1000pj

Megapixels are no longer enough. Sure, slapping a big number on the front of a camera used to guarantee sales, but with the 10-megapixel barrier well and truly shattered manufacturers need something new to make their products stand out from the identikit cam crowd.

So we've had the Samsung ST550, with its extra screen on front for taking self-portraits without cutting off heads. We've also had Fuji's FinePix Real 3D W1, the world's first camera capable of taking pics in glorious three dimensions. Now there's the Nikon S1000pj, which comes complete with a built-in projector (another world first).

It sounds like a gimmick and, let's be honest, it probably is. But, having spent a week playing with the S1000pj, we think it's a fun feature that anyone prepared to fork out the £399 asking price may end up finding rather useful.

Hands-on
Pico projectors might be small, but they're not so weeny that you can squeeze one into a camera casing without anyone noticing. Shoehorning a projector into the S1000pj has clearly been a challenge for Nikon, but the result is a camera that is merely chunky, rather than outrageously bulky. It's not particularly heavy, either, and will fit comfortably into a jeans pocket or handbag without giving you a pronounced limp.

A more noticeable concession has been with the placement of the camera lens. The aperture for the projector lives in the middle of the camera, where the lens would normally be, which means the lens has been shifted across to the left-hand side (as you hold the camera in picture-taking mode).

This isn't without its problems. We found it rather easy to accidentally get our fingers in front of the lens, as we're used to being able to solidly grip the camera with our left hand to steady it. In order to avoid a nasty case of finger-focus, we had to instead adopt a rather lighter, hand-on-the-side approach.

The projector itself is of impressive quality, producing a clear, bright image when viewed in a semi-darkened room. A button on top of the camera switches from camera to projector mode, while a plastic slider enables you to quickly focus the image. This manual approach to focusing seems a little old-fashioned, compared to the do-it-all digital features of the rest of the camera, but it's easy enough to get a sharp image.

Image quality
Pictures are displayed at VGA quality at up to 40 inches across, with the size determined by how far back you place the camera (up to two metres away from the wall or projector screen). Boosting the pictures up to a decent size really shows off the capability of this gadget. Viewing pictures on the 2.7-inch LCD screen is all well and good, but seeing them displayed at more than ten times that size is more than impressive; it lends a whole new perspective to what you've shot.

This is where the extra cash demanded by the S1000pj becomes justifiable; flipping through your projected pictures using the supplied remote control brings them to life in a way you don't get by squinting at the LCD screen or crowding around a computer monitor.

That remote is a tiny little thing - about the width and length of a box of matches but much thinner. A handful of buttons enable you to move through your photos on the camera and also zoom in and out. Everything you see via your projector is the same as shown on the screen; so you can, for instance, navigate through your pictures by zooming back to thumbnail view. We found it quick and simple to use, and the remote offers a neat bonus in that you can also use it to shoot pictures while your camera is on a tripod.

Shooting snaps
Lest we forget, taking pictures is what it's all about, and we were quite happy with the image quality on offer from the S1000pj. That all-important megapixel number is a satisfyingly meaty 12.1, and the lens is wide-angle with a 5x optical zoom. As is common with point-and-shoot compacts, the S1000pj really sings when taking high contrast images, while it struggles a little to pick out detail in dark areas of an otherwise light shot. But, on the whole, pictures are vibrant and clear.

There are a stack of features to help you get the best from the camera and getting around these is simple. That LCD screen is bright and easy-to-view, with the four-directional buttons offering one-touch access to exposure and flash settings, the self timer and a macro mode. Tap the shot mode button and you can access a number of scene modes, as well as additional features such as a motion-tracking option that will hold the focus on a moving object.

There's no doubt the addition of a projector has attached a hefty premium to the S1000pj, as it's easy to find a similarly specced compact - minus the projector - for around half the price. However, this is a strong, reliable snapper and, for the right user, that projector could turn out to be much more than a mere gimmick.

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