Olympus Mju 720SW

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By Damian Koh, CNET Asia
May 25, 2006

Water-resistant and weatherproof are yesterday's news as Olympus shells out its latest shock- and waterproof Mju 720SW. You can drop the shooter from a height of 1.5m, and if you're in the mood for some underwater moments, this Mju can survive drowning so long as it doesn't go beyond 3m in water--all these without the need to purchase extra accessories.

Design
The Olympus Mju 720SW looks more industrial than consumer. The cue being the presence of tinny rivets and screws--a dead giveaway for the kind of shock the unit is supposed to withstand.

Beyond that, we initially felt the metallic finish would be prone to scratches but we didn't see any of that during our review. Instead, it's the fingerprints that bothered us.

The buttons are arranged logically on this Mju, which are nothing to shout about. One tiny issue, though. If we had our way, we would have preferred these keys to be raised a little higher above the chassis. In addition, the zoom lever is a tad too small and people with larger digits may find themselves fumbling over pressing the wrong functions.

Flipping open the battery/memory card and the USB/DC-in/AV-out compartments unveils slivers of rubber which protect the innards of the camera. Even the click sound that the doors make when you close them sounds solid to us.

The camera weighs 149g, which is a little on the heavy side due to the 17 visible rivets/screws on the unit--yes, we counted them. But what you get is a shooter you can bring swimming with without worrying that it might drown. This Mju will even survive the occasional drop.

Features
Features-wise, the 7.1-megapixel Olympus Mju 720SW is all about being shock- and waterproof. However, there are limitations. Under specified test conditions, this Mju can withstand shocks of up to 1.5m in height and depths of 3m. But the fineprint also states that these standards do not guarantee the camera's safety. According to an Olympus representative, faulty units will be thoroughly checked and improper use of the camera outside the specified limits will not be covered by the warranty. The company claims it has equipment to test the conditions which the shooter had been subjected to, though we're not sure how.

	Our test unit went for a dip in the pool that's about the size of its body.

The 3x optical zoom lens begins from a not-so-wide 38mm and extends all the way to 114mm (35mm equivalent) without protruding out of the body. There's no form of optical image stabilization on this Mju but what it has is a high-sensitivity mode (maximum ISO 1,600) with fast shutter speeds to prevent hand shake or subject movement. While this manner of digital stabilization could reduce the number of blurry images, picture quality suffers as noise tends to be more evident at higher ISO levels.

As a general purpose camera, the Mju 720SW is great for families or casual outdoor snapshooters. In addition, there are 25 scene modes on this camera. Not too bad, but we've seen more on Casio's current Exilims. Underwater snapshots, macro and wide settings add icing to the cake. The issue we have is the number of keypresses needed just to get to a certain setting. That said, you also won't get the more advanced controls like shutter- and aperture-priority on this shooter.

The Mju 720SW supports basic image-editing functions on the camera itself. You can select from a total of 13 frames to go along with your picture, remove red-eye, adjust brightness or saturation, and even add a title overlay to your image. The Bright Capture technology, though not new, is also used on the 2.5-inch LCD for easier framing of pictures in dimly lit conditions.

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