Perhaps my Coolpix 7600 is different

I'm a bit appalled by the most negative comments on this camera. I bought it last week and so far I must say I'm very pleased. No real problems with AF, no serious issues when shooting indoors. I still have to read the manual thoroughly (I owned another Coolpix before this, so it's not really all new for me), so far I've been using the 7600 practically in auto mode with many default settings, yet I think the results are great. It hasn't got some defects in the rendering of colours that were present in previous Coolpix models (e.g. I remember the very very very bright reds in the 885) �� this 7600, in my opinion, gives very good, natural colours.

For me, two interesting features are the post-shot Blur Warning and the D-Lighting (in-camera shadow lightening). The Blur Warning is especially useful when you shoot and the photo you've taken looks fine in the small camera display, but actually it isn't. It can be disappointing to discover, later when you view the photo in your computer, that that shot you liked so much turned out to be slightly blurred. The D-Lighting may not be the best in-camera post-processing tool, but in some occasions turned out more than enough to correct an otherwise dark photo.

Another thing I'm satisfied with is the battery life. In the box with my 7600 were included two NiMH 2000mAH rechargeable batteries and Nikon battery charger. I've been taking photos for almost a week now and I still have to see the "low battery" icon appear on screen. I use the camera moderately, nonetheless my Coolpix 885's batteries last much less.

Many here have complained about the slowness of this camera. Sure, there is, for example, some delay when using the flash. The camera goes "blank" while recharging, but I did not find the wait times to be so awfully slow. Probably it's a matter of which kind of battery is powering the camera, but in my case, with NiMH rechargeables, the delay when using flash was just about 3 seconds. For my photographing, it's absolutely acceptable, and I've seen worse performances.

Criticising video performance of a compact digital camera like this is, in my opinion, fairly pointless. The primary thing a digital camera has to do is photos. Of course the video abilities of tiny cameras like the 7600 will be limited, there isn't much to expect here.

The only thing I don't like, for now, is the lack of exposure information on-screen, and I'm quite surprised by this absence, since even old models like the 800 and the 900 series display it.

In the end, I think this is a very good little camera and a good value for its price. For 200 Euro, I admit I was prepared to much worse.