Digicam Comparison Tool: Compare Camera Specs Side by Side

Digicam is short for digital camera. Today the word usually means the compact point-and-shoot cameras made by Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, Samsung, Casio, Olympus and others between about 2002 and 2016. Many of them are popular again because their photos look softer and more nostalgic than phone photos.

Most cameras people call Y2K digicams use a CCD sensor. With the flash on, CCD photos tend to have punchy colour, strong contrast and a slightly soft, grainy finish. Later compacts moved to CMOS (often back-illuminated, BSI), which is cleaner in low light and records Full HD or 4K video, but looks closer to a modern phone.

Not on their own. Almost every digicam here uses a small 1/2.3-inch or 1/2.5-inch sensor, so a 20MP CCD is not dramatically sharper than a 10MP one. Sensor size, the lens and the processing matter more. Larger 1-inch and APS-C sensors, like those in the G7 X Mark III, RX100 VII, GR III and X100VI, are a real step up in quality.

Choose a camera with a simple auto mode, a common battery and SD card storage. The Sony W800, Nikon Coolpix A100, Canon PowerShot A800 and Canon ELPH 180 are all easy to use. AA-powered models like the A800, FinePix A170 and Samsung S1070 are the easiest to keep running because you can buy batteries anywhere.

Most cameras from 2009 onwards take SD or SDHC cards. Older Sony models use Memory Stick Duo, some Sony models take microSD or Memory Stick Micro, older Olympus and Fujifilm cameras use xD-Picture Card, and early-2000s Canons use CompactFlash. The Memory card row in the comparison tells you exactly which card each camera needs.

Specs are taken from manufacturer spec sheets, instruction manuals and published reviews, and checked against more than one source where possible. When a figure was not officially published or could not be confirmed, we show a dash instead of guessing.