And that is where Olympus have pitched the Mju 400 digital camera, the 400 is a four mega pixel digital camera in a durable all weather body which is sealed by rubber gaskets stopping moisture entering the main camera body making it weatherproof. Another benefit of this seal system is the compact lens assembly resulting in a 3 times optical lens that protrudes from the camera body by just 10mm when set at the widest angle and when not in use the lens recedes into the camera and is covered by a sliding door.

The compact design of the Olympus Mju 400 means that there is only a single button on the top of the ultra thin unit and the majority of controls surround the 1.5 inch tft screen embedded in the back of the Mju 400, from here you can control all of the top level settings like basic scene settings for point and shoot type operation and access the deeper menus to manually set parameters.

The basic scene selection allows for fully automatic exposure control adjusting the MJU400's settings for the optimum exposure, these include Portrait, Self-Portrait, Landscape-Portrait, and Sports or Action options. For those willing to delve deeper there is spot metering, white balance and adjustable flash settings to compose more controlled pictures, these work well but are not the forte of the Olympus which for our money works best in point and shoot mode.

That said the most important bit for Olympus to get right is the user interface for selection of shooting modes, the start of the process is with the virtual dial button which in turn brings up a rotary on screen graphic though which you can use the left and right button to scroll around the wheel to select the desired shooting mode. Like their competitors Olympus have made a good job of keeping it simple with quick menu driven access to the settings that you have to change on the move..

Viewing pictures is also a simple task with a thumbnail view and the ability to delete straight from thumbnail to save space by ditching bad shots, you can also use the digital zoom to make the best use of the 400's 1.5" TFT screen although we'd never recommend that you use it for in camera editing.

You could call Olympus a bit tight for only supplying a 4 mega pixel camera with a 16mb card hardly enough for a few practice shots at high resolution let alone a days photography, so an upgrade of the photo card is an essential but when you can get this Mju model for only £180 its still a good deal. Another good upgrade option is a spare battery, the Mju 400 has good stamina in the battery department but a reasonable does of flash usage and using the TFT screen will result in a rapid halt to snapping, the battery meter is accurate but the final low battery warning is very quickly followed by complete shutdown, so a spare battery is a good idea.

A possible design flaw to be aware of is that the battery compartment is located just where your thumb naturally sits when you take shots, beware that it is very easy to open the compartment until you get used to the camera this could result in wiping the memory card if the camera is on and you pull out the battery. Charging the battery takes about 2 hours from flat and as its Li-ion it doesn't suffer the memory effect but does require you to use the supplied charger unit.

Overall we were impressed with the picture quality of the Olympus Mju 400 Digital Camera and its ease of use especially when you consider its target audience of point and shoot users, the battery is about average for endurance and its certainly small and lightweight (165g), yes there are a few niggles with the battery cover and a rather poor low light performance but it really represents amazing value. This model was North of £300 not so long ago and today its just £185 with free delivery, so please excuse us if we manage to overlook the minor issues and recommend the Mju 400.

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