Digital Trends

Casio Exilim EX-S500

September 27th, 2005 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

The Casio Exilim Card EX-S500 is really small, I mean credit card size, hence the name. Casio states the camera is .54 inches at its thinnest point and it “balloons” to .63 at its thickest. You really have to pick this one up to see what we're raving about.

The camera comes in gray but if you really want it to be a focal point of conversation, you can get it in white or orange (perfect for Halloween). The front features the 3x optical zoom that pops out when you power up and retracts snuggly with a built-in lens cover when you power down. It's the typical point-and-shoot 38-114mm range. You'll also find a metal accent, the flash and a port for the AF Assist Lamp, one of the best features for any size digital camera. The skinny top has a shutter button and a very tiny power switch; make sure you don't cut your nails too close because you'll find it a bit of a hassle to turn the thing on.

The rear of the EX-S500 is dominated by the 2.2 inch LCD rated 84.9K pixels, just one of the Achilles Heels of this camera (more on this later). There are dedicated buttons for playback, still and movie recording modes, a menu key, a nicely styled four-way arrow navigating pad as well as individual keys for wide and telephoto adjustment. There's also a BS key. OK, you can stop laughing. It stands for Best Shot not the barnyard byproduct and it's Casio's term for Scene modes. In this case there are 29 of them, covering everything from Children to Soft Flowing Water, Food, Business Cards and documents and so on. There are also a number of movie modes on top of this for a total of 33.

Since the camera is so slim, there are no doors on the side for memory cards or USB and video out connections. The memory card/battery door is on the bottom along with the tripod mount. The camera accepts SD cards and is supplied with a lithium ion battery that is recharged when you place the camera on the supplied docking station. You'll also find the USB and A/V out connections here as well (it's USB2.0). Casio states the CIPA rating is 200 shots per charge and after using it extensively we found the figure to be accurate. It's a good but not great spec.

The camera does not come with a separate quick start guide; it's on page 3 of the 19-pages of English instructions in the Owner's Manual. It does the job. When you power up after charging the battery in the supplied cradle, you are forced to pick a language, set the clock, pick your local city and adjust the time and date. Then it's off to adjusting the extensive list of options on the very easy to read onscreen menus. After putting everything in order and loading a 1GB SanDisk Extreme III card it was time to take some photos.

Image Courtesy of Casio