FE-230
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Hands-on with Olympus's SP-550UZ, Stylus 780, 770SW, 760, and FE-230, FE-240, and FE-250
Home stretch, camera nerds; last up is our photo gallery of hands-ons with all of Olympus's non-DSLR shooters (for the DSLRs, check out the E-510 and E-410 and hands-ons). We caught the SP-550UZ prosumer hybrid -- a very solid piece of machinery -- as well as their new Stylus 780, 770SW, 760, and the lower end but still very respectable FE-230, FE-240, and FE-250. Check 'em out, and wash yourselves of all the digital camera news for a short while as the world recovers from all the new photographic equipment its been asked to process.%Gallery-2043%
Olympus' low-enders: FE-210, FE-230, FE-240, and FE-250 with ridiculous ISO 10,000
Tired of the Olympus news yet? No, then try on four new entry-level cams from their FE-series: the FE-210, FE-230, FE-240, and FE-250. All ship in February with a 2.5-inch LCD 'round back and support for xD-Picture Card format -- all lack image stabilization which we expect at the low end. The $150 FE-210 is at the bottom of this pile with a 7.1 megapixel CCD, 3x optical zoom, and power supplied by 2x AA batteries. The $200 FE-230 and $250 FE-240 share that CCD but introduce Olympus' TruePic Turbo image processing to the series as well as a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The FE-230 packs an ISO 1250 while the FE-240 scales back to ISO 1000 but ups the optical zoom to 5x with a 3-cm macro mode. The $300 FE-250 then, is lord of the serfs with an 8.1 megapixel sensor, 3x zoom, BrightCapture low-light technology, and likely pointless ISO 6400 (or ISO 10,000 at 3 megapixels) without any image stabilization. Peep the rest of the pics after the break if you're not seething after that last one. Olympus, out.[Thanks, David]Read -- FE-210Read -- FE-230Read -- FE-240Read -- FE-250
