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The Nikon D40 stands up well against the competition—even those with higher resolution—with great image quality at all speeds, and near-perfect utility as a family camera. It’s tough to ask for more. The Nikon D40 lives up to our expectations, and even exceeds them. There’s no question that the Nikon D40 is a Dave’s Pick.

All things considered, the Nikon Coolpix L5 came out being pretty average. While there is much to like about it, it has more than its share of flaws. What I’m getting at here is that while the L5 isn’t a bad camera per se, there are are better options out there. If you can give up image stabilization, I’ve found Kodak’s EasyShare C875 to be a capable—not to mention less expensive—little camera. If you want to keep image stabilization but want an all-around better camera, I’d recommend spending a little more money to get the Canon PowerShot A710 IS.

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The Nikon Coolpix L5 compact camera has a very similar feature set to its brother, the L6, which I reviewed at the same time. Of course, the extra zoom range, resolution and the inclusion of VR technology developed for Nikon’s DSLR range puts the L5 ahead of its lesser specified brother on first look. Although there are better designed and sleeker compacts out there offering similar specification and performance, the Nikon Coolpix L5 serves the point and shoot amateur market for which it’s intended, and is a more than acceptable marriage of price to build to performance.

The three big advances of the Nikon Coolpix S7c are worthwhile ones. Getting 7.1 megapixels over 6 megapixels isn’t a big deal, but getting Hi ISO and Coolpix Connect certainly are. And, somehow, it’s available for just $300. At that price is just plain silly to complain about anything else. Small digicams are not famous for their image quality. The Nikon Coolpix S7c starts from that premise but taps into some smart electronics to compensate for the compromises. As a result, the Coolpix S7c is as attractive for its image quality as it is for its styling. And if that doesn’t sell you, its extended WiFi support will.

The Nikon Coolpix S9 is the budget model in Nikon’s stylish S-series cameras and while it maintains the attractive slender looks of its predecessors—and even manages to shave off a fraction of an inch in size—the camera drops several of the other Coolpix S models’ key features. Items dropped include the easy-to-use jog wheel on back and the excellent Pictmotion multi-media slideshow function. Nikon has also significantly decreased the resolution on the camera’s 2.5 inch LCD screen. More significantly, image quality on this model—particularly when shooting at ISO 400—lags behind most competing models in this class, with pictures showing excessive chroma noise in shadow areas.