Review Date October 26, 2009

Nikon Coolpix S1000pj

  • Pros

    Built-in projector. Decent operating speeds.

  • Cons Very expensive. Subpar feature set for the price. Soft images. Some color fringing. Bulky design. No lens cover to protect projector window.
  • Bottom Line

    The Nikon Coolpix S1000pj's built-in projector offers a unique and fun picture- and video-playback experience, but when it comes to performance and features this $400+ camera doesn't deliver.

By PJ Jacobowitz, M. David Stone

As the point-and-shoot digital camera market matures, it seems like flashy, never-before-seen features are what manufacturers are using to make their shooters stand out of the crowded pack. Case in point: The $350 Samsung DualView TL225, which features two LCDs, including a forward-facing display so you can easily capture self-portraits. But this pocket camera also offers excellent image quality and a very solid feature set for the price. Another example: Nikon's 12.1-megapixel Coolpix S1000pj ($429.95 list), which grabs your attention with its built-in projector that can project images onto a nearby wall, so you don't have to huddle around the camera to see the photos or video you've captured. But unlike the Samsung TL225, which is a terrific camera that happens to have a buzz-worthy feature, the S1000pj, besides its projector, is an otherwise mediocre camera that comes at an extraordinary price.

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A Pocket Camera for Big Pockets
At 2.4 by 3.9 by 0.9 inches (HWD), the S1000pj is pretty thick, which is understandable considering there's a projector inside its 6.5-ounce body. The camera's f/3.9-5.8 5x optical zoom lens offers a focal length of 28-140mm; bulky pocket cameras typically offer a more powerful zoom lens. The .94-inch thick Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 ($280) features an 8x optical zoom, while the .89-inch Fujifilm Finepix F70EXR ($280) includes a 10x lens.

The LCD on the back of the S1000pj isn't bad—it doesn't show much motion blur and we never had trouble viewing images—indoors or out—in our tests. But the 230K-dot, 2.7-inch display is underwhelming for a $400+ camera. The Canon PowerShot SD970 IS ($380), the aforementioned Samsung DualView TL225, and the $380 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 all offer displays that are 3 inches or larger, with sharper resolutions for a better image-viewing experience.

Project Your Images
The projector is positioned on the front of the camera below the flash, but its lens is not protected by a cover, so you need to make a conscious effort to keep you fingers away from it. Directly above the projector's lens is a sliding switch that controls the focus of the projected image—a button on top of the camera turns the projector feature on and off.

You can project still images and video in VGA resolution (640 by 480, at 30 frames per second) and add effects too—one nifty one makes your video look like an old-school movie for a film-like experience. A remote is included, so you can control playback on the camera from afar. A built-in speaker on the camera plays audio, but it's not very loud. Unfortunately, the S1000pj can only project content captured by the camera, so it's not possible to upload outside images for playback on the projector.

Since the camera could not read any of the files we normally use for testing projectors, we weren't able to run our standard brightness tests because we couldn't create a 100-percent white image for the camera to project. Our subjective impression is that the projected image quality and brightness don't quite measure up to many of the standalone pico projectors we've tested, such as the $250 Ray Pico Projector. (Nikon rates the projector at 10 lumens, which is typical for pico projectors.) On the other hand, since it's not intended for displaying business presentations, lengthy slide shows, or full-length movies, the same level of image quality isn't required.

With the ambient light you'd find in a living room at night, assuming you're using a white surface as a screen (a piece of paper will do) the image is usable for displaying photos at roughly a 15-inch diagonal, but it's a bit washed out when compared with most pico projectors. Turn off the lights and it's usable for an extended slideshow at roughly 30 inches. The smaller you make the image, the more vibrant it looks, but even at the closest distance that the focus allows—about 10 inches from the screen for an image not quite 5 inches diagonally—the colors are still slightly washed out. Nikon claims the projector features a modest 30:1 contrast ratio, which explains its image-color issues.

With the lights out, there's also a distracting amount of light around the image, presumably from the internal reflections of the lens. We even saw it with the lights on 10 inches from the screen, but at greater distances, it's dim enough to disappear from view with ambient light. Again, given the fact that you're not likely to be showing long presentations, movies, or slideshows with the projector, the scattered light isn't a major problem.

During real-world tests, the image-playback experience was fun and it definitely impressed people, but it feels more like a novelty than a useful tool. In our opinion, cameras with large, high-resolution LCDs are more practical for sharing images.

So How's the Camera?
Nikon Coolpix S1000pj The S1000pj offers respectable operating speeds. The camera can power on, focus, and snap its first image in an average of 2.19 seconds, capturing subsequent images in an average of 2.90 seconds. The Editors' Choice Canon PowerShot SD970 is a tiny bit quicker—powering up in just 2.16 seconds, but its shot-to-shot times are almost a full second quicker, averaging 2.13 seconds. Using Shooting Digital's shutter lag test, the S1000pj averaged .50 seconds from shutter press to image capture, while the SD970 averaged .46 seconds—both are speedy enough to make the camera feel fast. But they're outdone by the Panasonic DMC-ZR1, which averages only.32 seconds of lag.

Unfortunately, the quality of images produced by the S1000pj is well below what it should be for a camera in this price range. In our testing labs, Imatest revealed that images captured in all lens position are very soft and show noticeable traces of color fringing in high contrast areas. There's no distortion at either end of the lens, however.

In the center of the frame (the sharpest part of the lens), the camera averaged just 1827 lines per picture height, and this number drops by an average of 45 percent as you move to the outer regions of the frame. A solid point and shooter should capture at least 2000 lines (more lines means more image detail). The less-expensive PowerShot SD970 produces much sharper images—averaging 2397 lines and dropping by 33 percent as you move towards the outer regions of the frame.

Outside the lab, images taken with the S1000pj were also unimpressively soft, and the camera's large build makes it somewhat cumbersome to carry around. Though once we turned on the projector, we were the life of the party. It wasn't difficult to find a spot dark enough to project images onto the wall, but we can't help thinking that a big, high-resolution screen to share photos and video is more useful.

Like many of the features on the S1000pj, the video options are subpar. The camera records video standard-definition (640 by 480, 30fps) video, which looks fine, but a $430 camera should really be able to capture high-definition video. Even the $160 Editors' Choice Kodak EasyShare M1093 IS offers HD capture.

Aside from its projector, the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj's performance and features are akin to what you'd find on a camera that costs half as much. Unless you have a practical use for the built-in projector, you should consider a camera that offers better overall performance, and features that you're likely to use more regularly, like a long optical zoom lens, a larger LCD, or HD-video capture. The Canon PowerShot SD970 IS covers most of those bases, but if you're looking for a touch screen and some additional pizzazz, which comes with a second front-facing LCD, consider the Samsung DualView TL225. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 is also worth a look, since it's short on shutter lag and big on optical zoom. And all of these cameras take better pictures and cost at least $50 less than the pricey S1000pj.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS: Check out the test scores for the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj

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PJ Jacobowitz
By PJ Jacobowitz Analyst, Digital Cameras


Follow PJ Jacobowitz Twitter: @PJJacobowitz
David Stone
By M. David Stone Lead Analyst Printers, Scanners & Projectors


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