Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this Nikon Coolpix W300 at my local camera store to replace the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 that I bought on Amazon.com ten years ago. I was looking for a compact camera with GPS that I would carry constantly in my pocket. (I don't own a smartphone.) Among all the cameras that I tested that fit these requirements, this model impressed me most due to the quality of its chassis and comfortable fit in my hand, its superior display monitor, its 24–120mm equivalent focal length range (the super-wide angle especially attracted me), its excellent close-up/macro performance, and the impressive speed, smoothness, and silence of its zoom. The fact that this camera is waterproof to a depth of 30m/100ft is interesting, but I don't plan to try to use it underwater (although I can use it in a kayak without fear of destroying the camera if I roll over). If, like me, you are looking for a compact camera with GPS, there are a few other competing cameras with slightly different features, so I advise anyone who is considering this camera to carefully compare its features with the competition on web sites such as Digital Photography Review. The weak point of this camera is image quality, due to the small 1/2.3" sensor size. Photography snobs would scoff at this camera for its small sensor size. But the cold hard fact is that nobody currently manufactures a compact camera with GPS and with a larger sensor size. So if, like me, you are looking for a compact camera with GPS today, you are stuck with this level of image quality, no matter which camera you choose. If you want better image quality in a compact camera today, you need to forget about GPS and spend a little more money for something like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX10. I'm not gonna lie, I would have preferred a larger sensor—indeed, the sensor in the W300 is only marginally larger than the sensor in the DMC-FX30 that I bought a decade ago—but again, there is no compact camera with GPS and with a larger sensor size currently on the market. So the image quality from this camera is as good as can be expected given its sensor size. Since I was a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 user for the past decade, there are some aspects of the Panasonic interface that I miss. In playback mode, the W300 doesn't display enough information about each photo; information such as ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and histogram are displayed in playback mode on my ten-year-old Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 but NOT on this brand-new Nikon Coolpix W300. (However, the shutter speed and aperture are displayed in shooting mode when pressing the shutter-release button halfway. By the way, like my old DMC-FX30 and like most other cameras in this class, shutter speed and aperture cannot be manually set on the W300, but they can be indirectly manipulated to some degree by changing ISO, zooming, or by switching to a different scene mode or to macro mode. That's plenty of control for me—even when I have had a chance to use (somebody else's) higher-end cameras, I almost never manually set shutter speed and aperture.) The W300 does display compass direction, altitude, and surface pressure for each photo in playback mode, which is cool, but that doesn't justify omitting basic information from the display such as ISO, shutter speed, and aperture that are already recorded in each photo's metadata anyway. I also miss Panasonic's "vivid" color setting. So, after switching from a ten-year-old Panasonic to this new Nikon I feel that I have gained some features but also lost some features. I just want to make digital photos every day using a compact camera with GPS, and this camera is what I chose from among the very limited range of alternatives available today that fit those requirements. Overall, this camera is an improvement over the camera that I bought ten years ago, although I miss some features of the Panasonic. UPDATE, July 25, 2017: Above I said that I missed Panasonic's "vivid" color setting. Not anymore. Today I found the "vividness" slider setting within the exposure menu in auto mode on the W300; it's just like the "vivid" color setting on my old DMC-FX30 but better, because it offers more control. I have REALLY enjoyed using the W300 over the past few days. It's like a camera honeymoon. This evening I went to an outdoor concert and used the W300 to shoot not only photos but also 1920x1080p videos at 60p (60 frames per second, twice the frame rate of the more common 30p) with stereo sound. I'm no video connoisseur, but to me the videos are nearly as good as being there. It's an amazing improvement compared to the monaural 848x480p video on my old DMC-FX30. UPDATE, July 30, 2017: After taking photos with the W300 daily for over a week, I estimate that I felt the need to apply manual exposure (brightness) compensation to around 50% of the shots. (I have also activated Nikon's great "Active D-Lighting" feature, which applies some exposure magic.) In contrast, I estimate that I felt the need to apply manual exposure (brightness) compensation to around 5% of the shots that I used to take with my old DMC-FX30. What's going on here? One bizarre possibility is that my ten-year-old Panasonic was much better at light metering than this brand-new Nikon. Another, more likely, possibility is that the monitor display on this W300 is so much better than the one on my old DMC-FX30 that it is now much easier for me to notice when the exposure needs adjustment. Of course, some combination of the two possibilities may be happening: Perhaps the W300 is not so great at light metering, but the excellent monitor allows me to notice the problem and correct it. (Update to the update: I later decided that this wasn't an issue with the light metering, it was merely me getting accustomed to the new monitor on the W300; after more experience using the camera I developed a better "feel" for what settings are needed in a given situation.) After less than a week of use, my W300 started displaying the compass direction incorrectly; only directions between North and West were displayed, even if the camera was pointing between East and South. I tried using the "compass correction" function several times, but received the message that the compass could not be corrected. After trying to use the "compass correction" function about ten times or more, the compass was finally corrected. So don't freak out if you can't correct the compass immediately; it will probably correct eventually if you are persistent with the compass correction function. UPDATE, December 18, 2017: It is now winter where I live, and I have been taking lots of photos outdoors in the cold with the W300. This camera really shows its strengths in winter conditions: It's fairly easy to use all the functions of the camera while wearing thick winter gloves; I don't own a smartphone but I'm guessing it's impossible to take photos with most smartphones while wearing thick winter gloves. The camera also works flawlessly in temperatures far below freezing that would have rendered my previous camera, the old DMC-FX30, completely unusable. Before winter came, I also confidently used the camera several times in the rain, knowing very well that even the hardest rain would not damage this camera. UPDATE, June 7, 2022: As I mentioned above, when I bought this camera five years ago I didn't own a smartphone. In mid-2020, I acquired my first smartphone, the latest cheapest model from Apple. The W300 is still going strong, performing as well as ever. (Last year I even used the W300 underwater once, just below the surface of a tide pool, and it worked great!) I still use the W300 all the time during the day; it's much better than the phone for general photography due to its optical zoom. (I refuse to use digital zoom on any camera since digital zoom makes photo quality awful, so my phone camera is functionally a fixed lens, no zoom. This makes the phone much less versatile than the W300.) The W300 also has much better video stabilization than the phone. It's almost unreal how superior the W300 is at video stabilization. Finally, the W300 has a few other features that the phone lacks and is much easier to grip with the hand. Where the phone excels is in low-light situations; image processing of low-light scenes is just unbelievably better with the phone, so now almost all of my night shots are done with the phone. But I'm still loving and using the W300 for daytime shots, and I expect it to last at least another five years.