Quirks can make or break a relationship. He or she may be attractive, smart, funny and have plenty of good qualities, but unsightly habits such as tooth-clicking or nail-biting may be enough to push you over the edge. Technology is the same way; a camera may be attractive and fast, but those irritating flaws can be enough to drive you crazy. Casio’s 7-megapixel Exilim EX-Z70 is one such quirky camera.

At 4.8 ounces and only 0.8 inch thick, the Z70’s slim, metal body is the right size to fit into your pocket. Though the size is right, you should still be very careful when pocketing this camera. Besides the tiny power button on the top, the two flat record and playback buttons on the camera’s backside can also turn it on. If your pocket is too tight or if you don’t pay attention, you could drain the camera’s battery or have the lens pop out at inopportune times. On the back of the camera, the 2.5 inch LCD takes up most of the space with just a few additional buttons. A zoom rocker switch on the top right of the camera handles zooming during image capture or image playback. Below the zoom switch are two buttons used to switch between capture and playback modes. A 5 way directional pad provides the main mechanism for navigating through the menus that are activated with the menu button. A BS button provides access to the Casio Best Shot scene modes.
The tiny Z70 features a maximum capture resolution of 7.2 megapixels. Images can be captured at resolutions of: 3072 x 2304, 3072 2048 (3:2 aspect ratio for 4×6 prints), 2560 1920, 2048 1536, 1600 1200, and 640 x 480. Three levels of JPEG compression are also available: Fine, Normal, and Economy. At full 7.2 megapixel resolution and Fine compression, the file size is approximately 4.32 MB. At this size, you can fit approximately 55 shots on a 256MB memory card.The lens provides a 3x optical zoom range (a 35mm equivalent focal length of 38-114mm). There are 6 increments of zoom control through the optical zoom range.The 2.5 inch LCD on the back of the Casio has 115,200 pixels of resolution, is color accurate and refreshes quickly enough to afford a smooth image. It gains up or down automatically, depending on the light conditions. Outdoors in the sunlight, the LCD visibility is average.The Casio Exilim EX-Z70 will power up in approximately 1.4 seconds with flash off, has a 0.002 second shutter release lag time and with high speed image play back will scroll at 100 images per 10 seconds. Flash is built into the Exilim EX-Z70 and can be selected as auto, on, off, soft and red-eye reduction whilst rapid flash can produce 3 flash photos per second.