Ricoh Caplio R2

Opinion: I had my mind set on a fuji F10 but my local dealer somewhat pushed a caplio R2. So, I left the shop a proud owner of a beautiful, sturdy-looking 5mp camera.
It wasn't long before I realized that the pixes it took just didn't compare in terms of appeal with those taken with my old battered 2mp Finepix 204!
I have now upgraded to a Nikon D50 which perfectly suits my needs and the ricoh's future lies at the bottom of a cycling jersey's back pocket. Beautiful, easy to use, very good features (copying documents), excellent macro but unsatisfactory everyday snaps.

Opinion: Bought this because of its size, zoom and large lcd all of which are good and the response time/start up are fast as well, a neat well made camera but....
the bad news is the image quality is poor with most pictures never sharp and the picture noise is apparent in most shots except bright light, I also have a olympus 3030 (3mp) which outperforms this by miles in picture quality.
Cant say I would recomend this camera

Opinion: It is a nice camera - small, wide zoom, AA batteries applicable, has many features

Opinion: ricoh has produced a camera with fast focus, start-up for tis class and great looking tough body......sad to say after all thiss is a camera and its basic function is to take a picture!!!

in short, the image is too noisy for any good. have used a canon ixus, casio and nikon compacts of similiar class. at least at low ISO they are very good, though most are ISO 400 of compacts are unusable.

for the ricoh, at all ISO the picture quality just cannot make it....unless you are those who will only look at the picture on the camera screen and print direct from a printer, viewing the image at even 50% on a computer screen will dissappoint you.

Opinion: R2 specification:
POWER: Should write "AA rechargeable batteries"
Should not write "Lithium Ion rechargeable"
Just because AA battery is better than Li-Ion battery
HOPE RICOH COMPANY REMEMBER THIS POINT

Opinion: I bought R2 week ago, because of size, features and battery lasting. Images are bit noisier above ISO100, ISO 800 is almost unusable without procesing, this is why in most cameras ISO800 is not featured. There is also some purple friging on pictures, but its also not unusual in even bigger lenses.
On the other side you get for money 28-135 zoom - fairly rare in cellphone-sized cameras, I dont know about simillar zoom range in Canon, Nikon, Casio or whatever..
You get maybe fastest camera and this is very important, more then most of people may believe...
You get long lasting battery, again maybe the best in PnS cameras - definitely very important, another plus is you can use AA cells when battery goes off...that makes it almost impossible to stay with dead camera on field...happened to me so many times with my old Canon G1...
And you get amazing 1cm macro and lots of other features in very good metal body for the price 240 Euro.

Opinion: There is so much to like about this camera. There's a huge amount of glass in the lens, unlike every other compact, build quality is superb, battery life is astounding (around 500 shots or over six hours of playback), it takes AAs, 1cm macro, fast startup, almost instant shutter response, big screen, compact size, good resolution, even movies are okay.

Now that Samsung have announced two cameras with the same lens assembly (one of which also seems to have the same body), it will be interesting to see if these problems are also carried over. Is Ricoh an ODM/OEM supplier of the whole camera or just the lens assembly?

The Samsungs also promise MPEG4 video...

Opinion: good wide angle and zoom ratio not found on many compacts . quick startup and good video quality, however noise levels are shocking in anything but full sun . flash range very limited unless you set iso to "auto" then you get the noise BIG time . Good camera for quick casual shots where the occasion is more of an issue than the quality of the image . Will stick to my DSLR for most things.

Opinion: I haven't had this long but it is not up to scratch.