Not much bigger than a credit card, though obviously a lot thicker, Ricoh's new compact camera offers a lot in its small case. For a start it has a 6-megapixel sensor, so it can take detailed images and zoom in on them digitally by up to four times. Add to this a 3x optical zoom and you have a useful little camera.
It has no viewfinder, but the 60mm LCD monitor is big enough to frame even complex shots clearly and the screen is bright enough to use in summer sunlight. The screen does take up quite a bit of the camera's back panel, though, so controls are rather squeezed in down the right-hand side.
There's a zoom toggle switch taking you from wide-angle to telephoto - using both those terms loosely - with three small buttons below, then a four-way jog dial and finally a little 'OK' button right at the bottom. The buttons are better operated with a thumbnail than the pad of a thumb, unless your hands are very small.
On top of the camera is the shutter release and a circular thumbwheel which selects its six capture modes. The on-off button is sensibly centred in the middle of this wheel, so it's hard to press accidentally. The capture modes are all standard fare and consist of auto, program, portrait, landscape, sport and night. Additionally, though, there are two triple-shot modes, which increase the flexibility of the Caplio RR660's picture taking.
Burst mode takes three shots in quick succession and, although it's not fast enough to capture high-speed sporting action, it could be useful at parties and other live events. Auto bracket mode, as the name suggests, takes the same shot three times, bracketing the exposure within a set range.
Under a flap on the bottom of the camera are sockets for a pair of AA batteries - there's no rechargeable option - and an SD card slot for cards of up to 1GB. The latter is just as well, since 16MB of internal memory is hopeless for a 6-megapixel camera. Set the RR660 to fine quality mode and you get just three shots.
Picture quality is good, with sharp definition and little noise until you get down to very low light conditions. The auto-focus works well and the camera is small enough to slide easily into a pocket in its slip case, so you can carry it with you nearly as easily as a camera-phone. You get much better pictures with the Ricoh, of course.
