Ricoh Caplio R3

The Ricoh Caplio R3 promises an awful lot on paper. A camera that can easily fit in your pocket, yet has a massive 7x wide-angle optical zoom lens. A camera that has a potentially winning ...

Lovely design, competitive photos, lightning quick

Poor features, some minor design issues

Great zoom ; Some good features

A bit cheap-looking

The build quality score suffers due to the poor lens cover, but the R3's feature set counterbalances this. So, should you buy the R3? Well, the megapixel count isn't exceptional at this price point, but the lens is. Is that enough? It depends how much...

Super-slim camera ; 7.1x Optical Zoom ; Vibration correction

Slightly noisy operation ; Odd onscreen artefacts ; Complex menu structures ; No optical viewfinder

The R3's display is nice and bright -- and the level of brightness can be adjusted for bright days, which is a good feature -- although we did notice some odd light patterns playing across the R3's LCD display while shooting, especially if there were...

Very compact and stylish with a solid metal body (will easily fit in pockets) ; Built in Vibration Reduction image stabilisation helps acheive blur free low-light / zoom photos ; 2.5" screen ; 7.1x optical zoom lens ; Fast continuous shooting mode ;...

The Ricoh Caplio R3 is a stylish digital camera with a 7.1x wide-angle optical zoom lens packed into a very compact metal body. The 5 megapixel camera features a 2.5" screen and built in vibration correction - this helps produce blur free photos in low...

The Ricoh Caplio R3 delivers consistently well exposed, sharp, well coloured photographs. The combination of lens and sensor produce exceptionally detailed and sharp pictures. Flash mode is good — subjects don’t look as though they are lit by an atomic...

The absence of an optical viewfinder is a disappointment

The Ricoh Caplio R3 is competing with the Canon Ixus 55 which does have an optical viewfinder. Image quality from both cameras is excellent and the Ricoh has the advantage of the 28mm wide angle lens and the vibration correction. Try them both.

The Ricoh Caplio R3 has vibration correction to combat camera shake, allows macro photos at up to 1cm and Ricoh boasts a shutter lag of just 0.09 seconds. The LCD on the rear of the R3 is 2.5inches which is big enough to display 12 thumbnail prints at...

Internal 26mb memory ; 28 - 200 Zoom ; 1cm Macro Mode

The lack of RAW format ; Vibration Control

Overall this camera is probably one that people will pass by, as the Ricoh name, although around for many years, has lost out to the likes of Canon, Fuji and Nikon. Which is a shame, because this is an excellent camera, well constructed and at a...