With an initially quite impressive-looking specification for the price, Trust's compact and sleek 770Z digital camera arrived with a reasonable degree of promise. The manufacturer behind it, while not likely to rival the likes of Sony or Kodak, has been steadily growing in confidence with its digital camera range after a bumpy start. The 770Z? No big cigars, but a steady, straightforward digital solution.
It does score points immediately for being blindingly straightforward to use. A minimal selection of buttons on the unit itself makes its operation eminently obvious to mildly experienced camera users, and you can be quickly snapping away without needing to open the manual.
The camera has a 3.3-Megapixel resolution, with a 3x optical zoom. That's not bad going for the price tag, and you can theoretically use the added 3x digital zoom as well, although we found that doesn't work as well when it comes to the end image. Still, the in-built TFT screen is crisp, with a decent enough menu system for you to make picture choices from the unit itself.
Mind you, the weedy 8MB memory won't get you very far. If you're thinking of the 770Z as a bargain, then you at least need to factor in the cost of a bigger memory card. As it stands, at top resolution you're looking at getting around seven or eight images stored on it (twiddling with resolutions can squeeze up to 60 in there, with the obvious hit on quality as a result); but those images will look quite good. A clear 300 dpi image taken on the camera measured in at a healthy 13 x 10cm, which is ample for most prints.
Where the Trust camera skimps, though, is in not doing things quite as well as some of its competitors. For instance, the in-built flash boasts red-eye reduction capabilities, yet the first snap we took with the camera had the eyes of a 'Doctor Who' monster staring back at us. It's easily corrected with a piece of software, and four good Ulead packages - Photo Express 4.0 SE, DVD PictureShow SE and Photo Explorer 7.0 SE and Cool 3D- deal with the PC-based tasks. Also, the camera's optical zoom is fine, but digital zoom rarely works out that well, and this camera is no exception in that respect. And it eats batteries like nobody's business!
Still, the Trust 770Z has a good auto-focus that works really quite well, and for the money it's hard to find a camera that can match it in terms of both features and the very generous selection of software you find in the box. Mind you, anyone more than an enthusiastic amateur really should look to spend a little bit more.
