BenQ LM100
No doubt you are surprised to see a second
BenQ in this group, but we have to thank BenQ for delivering its LM100 when we
were let down by another company. Such is life.
BenQ LM100
The LM100 is a durable design that is aimed
at the intrepid traveler and is claimed to be waterproof, freeze proof,
shockproof and dustproof. Those are bold claims and we're going to immediately
say that we didn't test the LM100 by dropping it in a bucket of water or
shocking it with a hefty mallet. In fact, we have an issue with the use of the
suffix 'proof' when BenQ would do very well to produce a camera that was simply
water and dust resistant.
A consequence of the design is that the
LM100 has a limited range of optical zoom and can only manage 4X with a 35mm
lens equivalent to 25mm-100mm.
BenQ has used the same TFT screen on the
LM100 as we saw on the GH200 which measures 6.9cm/2.7" on the diagonal,
rather than the 7.5cm/3.0" screen used by the other three makes. The size
doesn't especially matter but the resolution of the screen is significant.
BenQ has chosen a screen with 230k dots,
which is the same number as the Panasonic, yet that means the larger Panasonic
screen has a lower dpi rating and you can just about tell the difference.
Samsung has upped the screen resolution to 288k to give the same dpi rating as
BenQ while Canon leapt to 461k which is significantly higher and looks
absolutely lovely.
The package supplied with the LM100 is the
same as the GH200 and consists of a soft carry case with some ArcSoft software,
and a proprietary USB 2.0 cable for charging and data transfer. The combined
charger and USB port works well enough but the proprietary cable is annoying,
because you need to take care that it doesn't get lost.
We found that the controls and menus in the
LM100 were very different to those in the GH200.
For instance, at first we couldn't get the
LM100 to shoot HD movies as the options were restricted to VGA, QVGA and web.
It took a read of the manual to determine that HD video is only possible when
you use an SD card that is Class 6 or above. The card we used in the other
cameras is, presumably, Class 4, while another card that looked identical but
was acceptable to the LM100 worked correctly and could be used to shoot 720p
video.
Photo quality was very similar to the
GH200, which is another way of saying that they aren't especially good. It's a
funny thing but the limited 4x zoom works better on the LM100 than the high
zoom on the GH200 as it conceals the limitations of the pictures.
So, what do we learn from all of this?
Well, treat the LM100 as a rugged point-and-click camera and you'll be
perfectly happy, but don't raise your expectations too far.
“Treat it as a rugged point-and-click camera
and you'll be perfectly happy”
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Details
Price: $157
Manufacturer: BenQ
Website: www.benq.com
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