Nikon finally joins Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, Fujifilm, and, well, all the other camera manufacturers by adding a rugged point-and-shoot to its lineup. The Coolpix AW100 is waterproof down to 33 feet, shockproof to 5 feet, and freezeproof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
Up front is a 5x f3.9-4.8 28-140 with sensor-shift image stabilization, on back is a 460K-dot resolution 3-inch screen, and inside is a 16-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS sensor.
Features include Action Control (which seems stolen straight from Olympus) that lets you change settings by tapping the sides of the camera or shaking it; full HD movie capture with stereo mics; built-in GPS receiver for geotagging your photos; and an electronic compass.
The Coolpix AW100 comes in black, blue, and orange and will sell for $379.99.
Other than suffering from too many marketing-pixels and a fairly small maximum aperture, the AW100 seems like it should be a serviceable ultracompact point-and-shoot. Thoughts?