The Olympus VG-130 is a neat little digicam that's about the same size as a typical smartphone. Surprisingly for a camera of this class, the outer shell is made of metal, which lends an air of sophistication to what is essentially an entry-level product offered at an entry-level price.

The design of the camera is simple, almost minimalistic. The lens, which sits fully retracted into the body when the camera is not in use, occupies almost the entire right half of the face plate. Spanning a 35mm equivalent focal range of 26-130mm, it goes wider than most compact camera lenses, which again is a nice touch at this price point. Its maximum aperture is a fast f/2.8 at the wide end but a disappointingly slow f/6.5 at full telephoto. The rest of the front plate features two pinpricks indicating a built-in microphone bottom left of the lens surround, a sliver of a window for the on-board flash and AF assist lamp. The top panel offers even less in the way of controls, featuring only a small on/off button and a well-placed and adequately sized shutter release.

The back of the camera is dominated by the three-inch rear screen, whose resolution of 230,400 dots is a bit on the low side for a display of this size. To the right of this monitor, we find a cluster of controls that include a pair of zoom rockers, a red Movie Record button that enables you to start capturing a video clip anytime you see something worth being filmed, a Playback button that can be configured to act as a secondary power button when all you want to do is review the pics and videos stored on the memory card, a standard four-way navigation pad, plus a Menu and a Camera Guide button.

Features

• 14-megapixels
• 5x optical zoom (26 - 130mm equivalent in 35mm photography)
• Aperture: f2.8 (W) / f6.5 (T)
• 3.0" LCD 230K dot
• 25 Shooting Modes, including Intelligent Auto
• Magic Filters (Pop Art, Pinhole, Fisheye, Drawing, Soft Focus, Punk, Sparkle)
• Panorama: PC Panorama (Up to 10 frames automatically stitchable with ib software)
• Sequential Shooting: Approx. 0.8 fps / 200 images (14M); Approx. 2.3 fps / 200 images (3M); Approx. 10.0 fps / 20 images (3M)
• Internal Memory: 49MB

Specifications

        No. of effective Megapixels  -  14M

        Removeable Memory  -  SD/SDHC

        Internal Memory (for shooting)  -  49MB

        Recording Image Size (px)  -  4288 x 3216 (max)  640 x 480 (min)

        Lens focal  length  -  26 - 130mm

        Optical Zoom  -  5x

        Digital Zoom  -  20x

        Focus Range (Normal)  -   W:0.6m-∞ / T:1.0m-∞

                              (Macro)    -   W:0.2m-∞ / T:0.6m-∞

                              (Super Macro)  -   0.07m-∞

        LCD Monitor  -  3.0 Inch-230,400 approx (TFT color LCD)

        Maximum ISO sensitivity  -  1600

        Magic Filter  -   POP ART, PIN HOLE, FISH EYE, DRAWING, SOFT FOCUS, PUNK, SPARKLE

        Image stabilizer  -  DIS

        AF mode  -   Face Detect&iESP, Spot, AF Tracking

        AF Tracking  -  Yes

        Face Detection  -  Yes

        Movie recording with sound  -  AVI Motion JPEG

        Movie recording siza (px)  -  1280 x 720, 640 x 480, 320 x 240 

        Battery  -  LI-ion Rechargeable Battery LI-70B

        HDMI (type)  -  No

        Dimensions  -  96 x  56.5  x 19.3mm

        Weight  -  125g