General Electric E1410SW

General Electric's E1410SW ($159.99 direct) is a very affordable compact point-and-shoot camera with an impressive 10x zoom lens. It doesn?t cost as much as competing superzooms, but the money you save is offset by inconsistent performance. The camera's lens is quite sharp, but its 14-megapixel sensor doesn't do well in lower light. It records a very short shutter lag and can grab a burst of ten shots in a second, but takes a long time start up and grab a shot. Our Editors' Choice for long zoom cameras is still the Nikon Coolpix S9100 ($329.95, 4 stars), but the E1410SW deserves a look if you're on a budget.

Design and Features
Very light and compact when you consider that it houses a 10x zoom lens, the E1410SW measures 2.2 by 3.9 by 0.7 inches and weighs only 4.8 ounces. Only a few long zoom cameras, including the tiny (2.1-by-3.4-by-0.8 inch)?Canon PowerShot Elph 520 HS ($299.99, 2.5 stars), are significantly smaller. The camera, which features a sturdy metal body, is available in black, brown, champagne, or red finishes.

The optically stabilized 10x zoom lens covers a 28-280mm (35mm equivalent) field of view. You can get longer zoom cameras that are of similar size?the Canon PowerShot Elph 510 HS ($349.99, 3.5 stars) has a 12x (28-336mm) zoom?but expect to spend more money. Of course, you'll have to deal with some quirks that you won't experience with other cameras?the E1410SW is slow to start up and the flash is always enabled on startup, even if you had turned it off before turning the camera off.

The camera isn't rife with physical shooting controls, but it does have a few. There is a dedicated Movie button, as well as a control buttons to engage Macro mode, adjust Flash settings, and engage the Self Timer. Hitting the Set button, located on the rear of the camera, activates an overlay menu that allows for quick adjustment of EV Compensation and ISO. You can toggle overlays on the rear display as well?options include an unobstructed view of your frame, an overlay with the current shooting settings, and an overlay that adds a rule of thirds grid.

The rear LCD is 3 inches in size and features a modest 230k-dot resolution. This makes it pretty soft when you compare it with cameras with higher-resolution displays. Both the Samsung WB750 ($279.99, 3.5 stars) and the Fujifilm Finepix F600EXR ($349.95, 3 stars) feature 460k dot screens?but neither is as inexpensive as the E1410SW.

Performance and Conclusions
In terms of speed, the E1410SW is a true Jekyll & Hyde story. The camera can rattle off 10 shots in a second before slowing down to a very respectable 0.44 second between photos and records only 0.1 second of shutter lag. But it takes a full 5.8 seconds to start up and take a photo, which is pretty dismal. Superzooms generally take a bit longer to start up than cameras with shorter zoom ratios simply because it takes longer for the lens to extend?but not to this extent. Our Editors' Choice Nikon Coolpix S9100 , a camera with an 18x lens, takes 1.6 seconds to start, but records a 0.5 second shutter lag and makes you wait 1.8 seconds between photos.

I used Imatest to measure the sharpness of the images captured by the E1410SW. A score of 1,800 lines per picture height is required to classify a photo as sharp, and the camera exceeded this benchmark?recording a center-weighted average of 1,967 lines at its widest angle. It should be noted that the corner resolution was rather poor, so don't expect objects offset in the frame to be as sharp as those in the center. You can find a sharper camera?the Casio Exilim EX-H20G ($349.99, 3.5 stars) records a stunning 2,542 lines?but the E1410SW will get the job done as long as the subject of your photo isn't located in the corner of the frame.

Imatest also measures image noise, which is an area where the camera doesn't do that well. A photo is considered to be overly grainy if noise exceeds 1.5 percent. The E1410SW can only keep images below this level through ISO 200?it jumps up to 1.7 percent at ISO 400, which is not too noisy to be unusable. The camera's noise reduction kicks in at ISO 800, reducing noise to 1.3 percent?but it also serves to kill off a lot of image detail to achieve that result. If I was shooting with this camera regularly, I would keep it at ISO 400 or lower. If you're looking for a superzoom that does better in lower light, take a close look at the Nikon Coolpix S9100?that camera can keep noise under control through ISO 3200.

Video is recorded in QuickTime format at 1080p30 or 720p60 quality. Footage is sharp, but not without issues. The sound of the camera focusing and the lens zooming in and out is quite audible on the soundtrack, and footage exhibits the rolling shutter wobble effect. Also known at the jello effect, it causes footage to have an unnatural wobble?not unlike that exhibited by Bill Cosby's favorite dessert. The camera supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC memory cards. It features a micro HDMI port for HDTV connectivity and a microUSB port to connect to a computer. The included AC adapter also connects via microUSB?there is no dedicated battery charge, so plugging the camera into the wall is the only way to charge it.

If you're on a strict budget and have your heart set on a long-zoom camera, the E1410SW should fit the bill?provided that you are willing to work within its limitations and adjust to its eccentricities. It is very slow to start up, but is quite responsive once powered on. The camera's lens is sharp in the center, but a bit soft in the corners, and you really should keep its ISO at 400 or lower in order to get decent images. There are better long zoom cameras out there?including our Editors' Choice Nikon Coolpix S9100, the Casio Exilim EX-H20G , the Canon PowerShot Elph 510 HS , and the Samsung WB750 ?but they are all priced much higher than the E1410SW.

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