Even with the batteries in place, the FinePix 30i feels rather lightweight and plastic. Designed very much for the youth market, Fujifilm highlights the fact that it can also be used as an MP3 music player. The company even supplies a wired remote control so you can select tracks while the camera is in your pocket. With only a 16MB SmartMedia card for storing audio or images, though, you'd be lucky to fit more than four music tracks on it, depending on the sampling rate.
As a camera, the FinePix 30i is quite fiddly to use. The buttons are small and the two shaped menu selectors, positioned around the jog-switch which controls the digital zoom, are particularly awkward. The three other buttons set into the back of the camera are hard to operate with a thumb, as they're too close together.
The FinePix 30i comes into its own as a fun camera, with extra features such as sound captioning of stills, short video sequences and sound-activated shooting. The idea of this last feature is to set the camera up, perhaps at the start of the party, so it shoots whenever there's a burst of laughter or shouting. If the party's any good, though, wouldn't it be going off most of the time?
Our test images came out over-bright, with the macro, flower picture looking particularly washed out. You can adjust for this using manual exposure compensation, but the automatic setting should have made a better attempt.
The FinePix 30i is a peculiar mixture. While its sound-based features could make it a handy toy in a busy social life, the price is not really right for a gadget. As a camera, its lack of optical zoom and fiddly controls make it look rather expensive.
