I’ve been wahing for the past week about wanting a Canon G9, but can’t really justify the expense right now. However, I still wanted a point’n’shoot I could take to the pub and which was slightly more discrete than carrying around the EOS 30D. Thus, when I was in London I had a wander to Morgan Computers on New Oxford Street – they specialise in remaindered and end-of-line technology.

After a bit of a wander around, I settled on a Nikon Coolpix L11 for about £50. It’s not the most advanced camera in the world but it’s quite small and reasonably easy to use and at 6MP with a reasonable control over white balance you can take some nice snaps with it. It also takes AA batteries which means in a pinch I can stuff it with Duracells from a shop round the corner. It takes SD which is cheap enough at 12 quid for 2 gig.

  • Pros: Reasonable snaps (nothing to write home about), video with sound as well, very small and compact, easy to use, good non-flash stability (example), face recognition and fast focus/shutter.
  • Cons: No viewfinder, you have to fiddle with white balance otherwise the flash gives a slight blue tinge (example).

Morgan don’t seem to have it listed on their website, but their Nikon page is here – note that you seem to be able to get better prices in-store, presumably because they never know what they’re going to have in from day to day. Amazon have them at about a tenner more, but if you’re wanting something you can get over the ‘Net you might as well go for something more interesting and full-featured.

As an aside I’d also give it a bit of a test in-store before leaving – with Morgan being a remainder and B-stock place, they sometimes don’t work quite as expected and it’s usually the flash that’s gone: I experienced this with the first one the guy had got out the back. Still no real hassle tho, nice folks.