nikon D40
Conclusion - Pros
* Excellent image quality, great resolution and detail, who needs eight megapixels?
* Surprisingly good build quality, tight shut lines
* Very compact and lightweight (especially with kit lens) yet still comfortable to use
* Kit lens is better quality than many others
* Great in-use performance, very responsive, short black-out time, very fast media write
* Good fast auto focus system (only 3 areas but that's not a big issue for this camera)
* Auto-focus assist lamp rather than requiring flash to be raised
* Reliable, sophisticated, if sometimes a little conservative matrix metering system
* For a Pentamirror the viewfinder delivers a surprisingly bright image
* Extremely useful, customizable automatic sensitivity (ISO)
* Easy to use playback / delete combination
* All playback functions available in record review
* Very attractive and intuitive menu system
* Unlimited continuous shooting in JPEG mode (with a reasonably fast card)
* Good SD card throughput and USB 2.0 transfer speed
* In-camera retouching features including D-Lighting and Red-eye reduction
* Support for SD and SDHC cards
* Good large LCD monitor with wide viewing angles
* Dedicated help button provides both shooting and in-menu assistance
* Programmable Fn hard button
* Value for money
Conclusion - Cons
* No lens motor in body means non-AF-S/AF-I lenses are manual focus only
* Disappointingly RAW+JPEG setting only records Basic quality JPEG's
* No status LCD panel on top of camera (we hate to see these go)
* No exposure or white balance bracketing
* No hard buttons (without customizing) for ISO or White Balance
* No depth-of-field preview
* Occasional visibility of moire artifacts (although seldom)
* Fixed exposure steps (1/3 EV)
* Disappointing automatic white balance performance in incandescent light
* No RAW adjustment with supplied PictureProject, only simple conversion
* Limited image parameter adjustment (especially for color saturation)