We live in the most technologically-advanced times and yet quality rarely seems to overpass marketing. It's rare that I'll talk about a compact camera the way I'm gonna talk about this Agfa, the new DC-600uw. In this case, it looks like the Agfa camera's specs are not put on the paper by the marketing department alone. With a decent 6-megapixel image size it doesn't push the limits of the tiny sensor it comes equipped with. No sensor size is available yet, but if it's a 1 / 1.7-inches then it's a winner over a lot of current compact cameras, even without mentioning the other features.

It might not have optical zoom or an exaggerated amount of megapixels like one of its competitors, the Pentax Optio W80, is not even close as far as style is concerned and it won't even record 720p, but it will dive deeper. It can be submerged in water up to 33 feet deep. This little fellow is YouTube and other video hosting sites friendly, since videos are easily scaled for faster uploads. Half of the 32MB internal memory is dedicated to storage. It supports SDHC memory up to 8GB.

It sports a 2.4-inch LCD display and a face recognition focusing function. In order to maximize durability, Agfa only implemented a 5x digital zoom from its fixed focal length of 36.5mm equivalent to 35mm camera and a F/3.2 minimum aperture. In term of exposure metering, you can select between multi and spot, you can compensate the exposure with -2 / +2EV in 0.5 steps. The ISO is pushed a little too far reaching 1600 although considering the CCD type sensor, it just might be usable when exposed properly. ISO is selectable in 1EV steps, shutter speed from 1/1000 to 8 seconds.

Besides the already mentioned submerging capability, the Agfa DC-600uw is also dustproof and shockproof. To kick the competition even more the little camera can record videos underwater with sound and uses two AA batteries instead of a proprietary battery. Pricing is set at around 200 US dollars, which is probably worth it, given the features.

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