Ricoh hasn’t attempted to tackle the waterproof camera market

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Ricoh hasn’t attempted to tackle the waterproof camera market until now and in that time Fujifilm, Samsung and Olympus have all had their stab at the market, producing pretty good offerings for the wide consumer audience. This, then, marks Ricoh’s first attempt in to the waterproof compact camera market and so you’d hope this camera was pretty good. Well is it? Read on, friends.

Pro’s - Solid build, good aesthetics, cheap
Con’s - Poor image quality, low quality LCD, not shock proof

Specifications

Review: Design, build

Compact digital camera’s are becoming increasingly premium in build and even cameras which are under £100 are made from aluminium or similar materials now unlike 3 years ago, where you’d be lucky to get a bit of chrome plastic trim. The good news here then is that the Ricoh PX has a solid build, and is made from durable aluminium which argue if you like, feels fantastic in the hand and makes this camera feel more expensive than it really is. From looking at this aluminium totting camera, though, you’d be hard pressed to find anything which makes it look different to regular compact digital cameras, but it is. Waterproof is the aim of game here, and the only way of telling this camera is designed to be waterproof (apart from the sticker which says ‘waterproof’ on the left side front of the camera) is the fact that the camera lense does not protrude from the case but is rather recessed, with watertight glass protecting it.

You can make up your own minds as to whether or not you like the design of this camera, however to me it feels a little bit bland, which is why Ricoh ships cases out for it which are available in pink, yellow, blue, brown and white. We were shipped out the black version of this camera which is probably aimed at the more professional person, however it is also available in silver and lime green. So, then, the Ricoh PX follows the same form factor as many compact digital camera’s out there however it isn’t the nicest to look at, nor is it thinnest, measuring in at 100 mm x 55 mm x 21.3 mm. All things said and done though the Ricoh PX does feel good in the hand and weighing in at 156 g also makes it easy to carry.

Around the back of the Ricoh PX sits the 2.7 inch LCD screen and your flash toggle, menu button’s and video mode. Moving on to the LCD, and it is one of the worst I have seen on a digital camera in a while, offering up washed out colours at the best of times and it is also not very usable in outdoor conditions / bright sunlight.
Shock Proofness
In a test we didn’t record or picture (it was a quick drop test), we dropped the Ricoh PX from hip height which resulted in the outer lense glass covering to smash, rendering the camera unusable and also not water tight. This we feel is a bit of a freak accident, as videos on Youtube suggest the camera can take more abuse than that.

Image quality, performance

Let’s get straight to the point; the Ricoh PX has pretty dire image quality. The problem with this camera for me was that is failed to overcome image noise at all ISO sensitivities, and taking pictures in good natural light was poor to dismal, with a graininess to the image and a whole lotta’ softness despite my best efforts to take a perfect shot. Indoors things started to get worse, and some of the images I took were completely unusable for this review. To give you an example as to how inconsistent some of the Ricoh PX’s images are sometimes, see below an image taken by the iPhone 4 and Ricoh PX (top image iPhone 4, bottom Ricoh PX).

As you can tell from the image above the Ricoh PX has troubles with white balance, a key indicator of this being the sky in which the clouds are non existent in the Ricoh PX image. This isn;t to say that a camera phone is better than the Ricoh, however it proves to be more consistent with shots across the board.
Despite the above in wideangle mode things start to get a little bit better for the Ricoh PX, and images start to look of a higher quality although the Auto White Balance system can be more than just a little bit inconsistent at times. Colour wise this camera produces them pretty well, overcoming some of the problems this camera faces in real life situations put down to softness. Overall I can think of a dozen waterproof cameras with a better image quality than the Ricoh PX, and you’ll be wanting to go here for those.

Okay, but is it waterproof?

One of the main selling points of this camera is naturally going to be it’s water tightness, so we made a test for the camera where we dropped the Ricoh PX in to a sink of water whilst it was on, to see if it would hold its own. According to Ricoh, the PX with waterproof up to 3 meters. In the test, the camera stayed water tight and came out fully functional.

Pricing

The Ricoh PX can be picked up from around £179.99, which is pretty cheap if you take in to account the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TF3, which costs around £300. We do have to stress though that the Ricoh PX is no stellar camera, and image quality is pretty poor.

Verdict

Oh Ricoh you almost had me going for a little bit. Despite a good build quality and aesthetically pleasing design, the Ricoh PX falls short in its primary function; being a camera. Taking pictures becomes a chore at times with this camera, and you’ll need some serious photo editing software to make the PX’s grainy and soft snaps worthy of a folder on your desktop. On top of this, the price of this camera makes it not the cheapest on the market (which it should be judging its performance) and it is also not freeze proof or crush proof unlike competitors. If you want our advice as to whether you should get this camera then here it is – do yourself a favour, would be waterproof camera owners, look elsewhere.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (5/10)
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