Top 10 cameras of June

The good: Good user interface; lots of options; impressive burst mode stamina.

The bad: Frustrating zoom rocker switch; cluttered controls; proprietary Memory Stick format.

The bottom line: Plain Jane styling and cluttered controls belie a wonderfully intuitive graphical user interface and some clever features. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W170 is a surprisingly adaptable camera that can be tweaked to take decent pictures in various environments.

The good: Optical image stabilization; optical viewfinder; decent photos.

The bad: Poor shot-to-shot performance; small LCD; awkward design; no optical zoom in movie capture.

The bottom line: A solid compact snapshooter, the Canon IXUS 970 IS nevertheless disappoints when compared with its predecessors and line mates.

The good: Fast performance; tons of handy image editing and playback features; zoom rocker is in a much more comfortable position.

The bad: Soft, noisy photos.

The bottom line: A great design, fast shooting, and lots of features can't overcome the fact that the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300 simply doesn't take very good pictures.