Although the size and shape of the Nikon Coolpix S640 is similar to many other compact point-and-shoot cameras, this camera has some important improvements over its predecessors and its competitors.

Nikon claims the S640 is the quickest Coolpix ever - with a fast start up time and an auto focus as fast as an entry level digital SLR. We can’t confirm that it is the fastest, but we were impressed by the speed of this camera. It allowed us to snap quick photos that we would have missed with many other point-and-shoot cameras. The word that came to mind often during our testing was “responsiveness.” The S640 was both fast and responsive.

The S640 reproduces color accurately and takes sharp and clear photos. The camera includes Nikons new Vibration Reduction technology. Nikon's Motion Detection technology manages shutter speed and sensitivity to compensate for minor subject movement. The Digital Image Stabilization boosts sensitivity (up to ISO 6400) and increases shutter speeds to help further stabilize the shot. This works quite well, especially in low light where instability is especially noticeable.

This Nikon also has a great feature called Best Shot Selector. With this feature enabled, the camera will automatically take up to 10 shorts and automatically save the sharpest one.

Nikon claims the S640 will take about 270 photos on a single charge. Even though we were constantly playing with the camera’s menus and functions and taking and deleting photos, we were able to take more than 200 pictures before the battery required recharging. The AC charger charges the battery in-camera, which we found very convenient.

Photos and movies can be stored on an SD card. The camera will accommodate cards up to 16GB and also has 45MB of internal memory.

One thing you are sure to notice on this camera is the lens performance. When the camera is turned on, the lens automatically extends out of the camera body, as shown in Figure 11.

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Figure 11: The lens extended.

The wide angle starts at a 28 mm equivalent, which is excellent for a point-and-shoot camera. Although there is a very slight softening on the corners of wide-angle pictures, this was not enough to be problematic. In fact we found the wide angle shots to be a big plus for this camera, allowing the photographer to get a little added reach to their everyday shots.

The camera is good at both indoor and outdoor photography with exposures pretty accurate. Color accuracy is good. Although some might find it a bit oversaturated, we found the slightly more vibrant colors to our liking.

The auto mode produces good results and the Auto White Balance seems more accurate than most cameras in this class. Noise levels become noticeable with ISOs of 800 or higher, but this is not uncommon in a camera of this quality.

Flash settings include manual, daylight, incandescent, fluorescent, and cloudy. The flash is a bit weak, but again, this is not uncommon in cameras in this class.