Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Digital Camera Review

Features
Handling
Performance
Verdict
Specification



Kodak's latest introduction to their Easyshare Touch range is the M5370 which has a touch screen and makes it easy to share your images on sites such as Facebook. It is available in silver, blue, pink and red with an RRP of £129.99.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Features

The Easyshare Touch M5370 is all about sharing your images which is why the camera has a button dedicated for sharing. When the camera is connected to your PC it automatically uploads your pretagged images to your preferred social network site, whether it be Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and more. Your friends can be tagged for Facebook and the camera will automatically save up to 20 people.

The M5370 has a 16 megapixel sensor which can produce prints up to 30 x 40 inches. There is a 5x optical zoom lens which is a 35mm equivalent of 28 - 140mm. The rear of the camera has a 3 inch LCD touchscreen which allows for tapping, swiping and dragging and also has Kodak Colour Science Technology.

The camera has Smart Capture mode to automatically adjust the camera settings in a wide range of scenes. Scene modes available include: portrait, sport, landscape, close-up, sunset, backlight, candlelight, children, bright, fireworks, self-portrait, night portrait, night landscape, blur reduction, high ISO, and panorama. With Blur Reduction the Easyshare Touch is also able to minimise the effect of camera shake. Face Recognition will recognise up to 20 pre-tagged friends, with up to five in one image.

As well as a varied range of scene modes, there are creative modes and artistic effects available. When shooting you can add a Kodacolor, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Tri-x, T-max of Sepia film effect. When editing photos you can add effects such as spot colour, photo captions, background blur, borders and tints and photobooth mode.

Videos can be recorded in full 720p HD video and edited in camera, then shared via a HDMI cable and there is an optional remote control available.

Key Features:

• 16 megapixel sensor
• 5x optical zoom (35mm equiv: 28 - 140mm)
• 3.0 inch LCD touchscreen
• Kodak Share button
• 720p HD video recording
• Smart Capture
• ISO 64 - 1600
• Kodak film effects

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Handling

The Easyshare Touch is made of plastic with five buttons as well as the 3 inch touch screen. There is a dedicated button for video shooting, playback and sharing as well as the typical power button and shutter release which is surrounded by the zoom rocker. When screwing the camera to a quick release plate or tripod the edge of the camera around the screen comes away slightly.

As was found on the Easyshare Touch M577, the camera takes a while to be ready to take pictures after switching on, although the M5370 is a touch quicker taking about five seconds. When it is finally ready the screen is responsive and consistent with many other cameras which feature touch screens. The cameras menus are clear and easy to navigate.

Focusing speed is good for a compact camera but continuous shooting is also a bit of a let down. At most it was only capable of a maximum of three shots at 0.8fps and on occasion the camera froze when processing the images*. There is no CIPA data for the cameras battery, but during testing it was only charged once, although when it's plugged in to download images it automatically charges as well, so it's unlikely you'll find the battery fully drained if you regularly move your images to your computer.

*This is an error which could be fixed with a firmware update.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Performance

When viewing the images at full size, detail isn't quite what you'd hope for from a 16 megapixel sensor, with images looking quite soft in the corners and in the wide-angle image below you can clearly see a fair amount of purple fringing in the trees. Colour reproduction is good and the camera is capable of a decent macro picture, with a minimum focusing distance of 5cm. One thing to note is that the P mode defaults to basic colour mode and the pictures look poor, it is best to switch to full colour mode.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Lens test images

Considering the large amount of pixels packed onto the sensor, noise performance is excellent throughout the ISO range. At ISO 64, the camera produces a good sharp image, with very little noise coming in at ISO 200. As you go through the ISO range. ISO 400, ISO 800 and ISO 1600 there is a steady increase in noise and softening of images, even at the highest ISO setting.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 ISO test images

Landscape mode produces good images and portrait mode gives pleasant skin tones, with only a touch of red-eye. Sport mode has been used to capture the water droplets in the air.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Sample Photos

The auto white-balance copes really well, especially under our studio lighting. The incandescent preset under the incandescent lights looks a touch green. Under the fluorescent lights the AWB again takes the better image with the fluorescent preset producing an image which looks slightly warmer.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 White-balance test images

The M5370 has a number of colour modes and film effects, with examples of each below.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Digital filters

Video Mode

The M5370 shoots 720p HD videos as well as VGAs but doesn't allow the use of optical zoom, although digital zoom is available.

Value For Money

The Kodak Easyshare Tough M5370 has an RRP of £129.99. Other digital compact cameras with a 16 megapixel sensor and 5x optical zoom to consider are the Canon PowerShot A3300 IS at £119.00, Sony Cybershot W570 at £129.00, Fujifilm FinePix Z900 at £139.95 and Nikon Coolpix S100 at £244.00

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Verdict

The M5370 shows a steady improvement on the M577 that we have previously tested. It is ready to take images a little quicker after switching on but there is still the occasional crashing when using continuous shooting. Although image detail isn't great for a 16 megapixel camera, noise performance is excellent throughout the ISO range and so is auto white-balance. The camera looks great, it's well designed and it offers a unique level of creativity with the film effects and colour modes offered. Overall, the Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 is ideal for those who want a stylish compact to take images for sharing on the web.

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Pros

Excellent noise performance throughout the ISO range
Good auto white-balance performance
Creative film effects and colour modes
Makes image sharing easy

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Cons

Not much detail in images
Continuous shooting is slow and crashes occasionally
Takes a while to be ready after switching on
Need to change colour mode when using P mode

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL

Kodak Easyshare Touch M5370 Specifications

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