(Since I’m trying to cover all of Nikon rather than just the cool stuff)

Nikon Coolpix's Announced

Nikon yesterday (11pm Eastern) announced a slew of new point and shoots and would like you to know about it:

NIKON ANNOUNCES EIGHT NEW STYLISH COOLPIX CAMERAS WITH APPROACHABLE TECHNOLOGY FOR ENJOYABLE PICTURE-TAKING

POWERFUL NEW L100 PACKS PERFORMANCE, HIGH-POWERED ZOOM AND ADVANCE FUNCTIONS INTO AN EASY TO USE CAMERA

NIKON UNVEILS S630 NEW POCKET-SIZED 7X ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA

NIKON UNVEILS NEW S230 TOUCH SCREEN DIGITAL CAMERA

POWERFUL NEW NIKON P90 UNLEASHES CREATIVE FREEDOM WITH 24x OPTICAL WIDE ANGLE ZOOM, VARI-ANGLE LCD AND ADVANCED SHOOTING MODES

Anything of note? Nope- but having a touchscreen on the back of the camera is way better than a d-pad (that little 4-direction button thingy like on the SLR’s for focus point control) if it works as well as the iPhone’s does.

I’d expect to see touchpads on the back of the flagships for the next generation. The iPhone’s touchscreen (actually a different part from the LCD itself) is AMAZINGLY GOOD at figuring out where you actually pressed. How much better it’d be to pinch the screen and drag it around than use the command dial to zoom in!

Conclusion? Noisier than a Hoover, equally capable of driving my dog nuts– and:

GPS functionality is well-implemented, but only works sporadically in urban environments and not all all indoors, and it has a significant drain on battery life unless you keep turning it on and off. LAN connectivity is limited to merely uploading pictures to Nikon’s My PictureTown online gallery, and RAW support is plagued by slow processing times and no continuous shooting mode at all.

Well it’s a point and shoot, so suprise, and if it was much more expensive, you’d be into SLR territory.

Samples are here, and I have to say that this isn’t Nikon’s best work.