The Canon G series are practically “reintroduced” when they announced the G9 in 2007. Before the launch of G9, the G series are reputed dead because of its incapability to compete with budget SLR, particularly with the introduction of 350D by Canon and D40 by Nikon.

When it first released in late 2008, the G10 received its share of mixed review. Overall it is an excellent compact camera, but many of its drawbacks came from its insignificant improvement from the previous predecessor. The G10 adopted on the styling, handling and built of G9, which is very much the key elements of the camera. The compact has one of the best LCD we’ve seen on a compact digital, 3.0 inch view with 461,000 pixels. The Digic 4 image processor works greatly for adding clear and sharp images. The Canon G10 also has a built in viewfinder, being the only one in the herd.

In summary, we can’t seem to find any negative elements that would make us erase the G10 from the list. But, please be aware that if you specifically wanted a camera that would fit in your pocket, this is not the camera for you. The Canon G10 has the biggest dimension compared with the rest of the camera we featured. But, Overall the G10 is a safe investment, it’s a pretty common compact in the market, so you don’t have to worry about the after sales and warranty.

In a time when Canon, Nikon and Sony had dropped RAW from advanced compacts, Ricoh is one of the few company that continued to innovate in this market with its GR series. It is consider less popular in the camera industry if compared with the likes of Canon, Nikon, Panasonic or Leica, but Ricoh managed to stay constant and even attracted many loyal followers. It’s compact 25mm thin magnesium alloy body has been highly accepted by a wide range of users including high-end amateur and professional photographers, since it first released in 2007.

So what makes this device special? Much like the Canon G10, we believe the grip and handling from GR II is first class. The GR II is constructed from magnesium with a plastic shell, which makes it convenience because of its lightweight and thin dimension. In our opinion, this is a true point and shoot camera.

One thing that you should note is that the GRII adopted a single focal length lens (28mm, 35mm equiv), with up to 4x (up to 5.7x at 640 x 480) digital zoom. As one would expect from a fixed length lens, it resulted a relatively better image quality than zoom lenses, although some people would find this as a drawback. Maybe this is why the compact isn’t popular among consumer in general.