The Lenovo camera is well-made overall, although there are a couple of external controls that don’t instill much confidence. The tripod socket is made of plastic and is inconveniently located in the left-corner of the bottom of the camera. All of the other camera competitors in this category are purely point-and-shoots, so providing Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority and Manual modes is a big advantage for the Lenovo.
Even more puzzling is the built-in flash, which inexplicably pops-up for every shot, regardless of whether you’re using flash or not, and what is worse, it can’t be pushed down again. The 12x zoom lens is also a real highlight, with an incredibly versatile focal range of 28-336mm that will cover virtually every photographic situation that you’ll encounter. This effectively means that it looks like you’re always using the flash, even if you aren’t, which will only cause unwanted attention in locations like museums and anywhere else that flash is prohibited.
It’s one of the most bizarre design decisions that I’ve seen in recent memory. Finally, the cheap plastic cover of the AV Out ports seems out of keeping with the rest of the camera. Unfortunately, this is also true of quite a few other key areas too. The 3 inch LCD screen has a lower resolution, the continuous shooting speed is over twice as slow, the lens is a little slower, the flash inexplicably pops-up for every shot, and Smart Auto Mode isn’t quite as smart as Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto mode.