GE E1040 - Digital Camera Review
Review Date: 06/04/2009
Rating: Average
Buy Now: Get the Best Price

Introduction: In the middle of 2007, GE (General Imaging) suddenly appeared from nowhere with a full range of digital cameras, inludeding the GE E1040. The GE E1040 is one of GE's top of the range 10 megapixel digital cameras, and features a 4x optical zoom lens, a large 3" screen, and face detection focus. The camera has the ability to take photos at upto ISO 3200, has digital anti-shake, panoramic stitching, and red-eye removal. The 4x optical zoom lens is equivalent to 40 - 160mm on a 35mm camera. The GE E1040 is available from around $215, this makes it excellent value for money for a 10 megapixel digital camera. The camera is enclosed in a sturdy metal body and is available in silver, or black. The E1040 can record video in 640 x 480 resolution at 25fps with sound. The body measures approx. 98.5mm Width × 58.5mm Height × 24mm Depth (without protruding parts), and weighs approx. 150g. excluding battery and memory card.

GE have this to say about the camera:

"Its 4X optical zoom and a 4.5X digital zoom put your lens right in the heart of the action. With the E1040’s generous 3-inch LCD screen, you won’t have to guess what your picture is going to look like. And a simple, intuitive user interface makes it easy to navigate through the camera’s many functions."

You can find more information on their website.

The Camera: a visual tour: (Photos of the camera taken with the Casio Exilim EX-Z1050)

Front - Camera off (focus assist lamp below lens).

Front view - camera on: flash, focus assist lamp (behind lens), lens (the lens appears to be identical to the Fujifilm FinePix E900 etc), microphone.

Back: On the back is the large 3 inch screen, face focus button, mode dial, Menu button, 4-way direction controller, middle Function / OK button, delete button. On the right is the wrist strap loop.

Top: On/off button, zoom control and shutter release.

Bottom - Speaker, Plastic tripod mount, battery / memory card compartment, the battery is held in with a latch.

Size Comparison: Compared to a Pentax PC-550 35mm film camera - a medium/compact sized 35mm film camera.

Size comparison.

Size comparison.

Specifications / Features:

• 10.0 megapixel CCD Sensor
• 4x Optical Zoom Lens equivalent to approx. 40 to 160mm in 35mm format
• 4.5x Digital Zoom
• Store images on SDHC memory cards
• 3" digital TFT colour LCD; 230,400 pixels
  
• ISO 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
• Electronic Image Stabilisation
• Face Detection Focus
• Panorama stitch mode built in
• Red eye removal
• Movie mode (640 x 480 VGA, 25fps) MPEG4
• 26mb built in memory
• 10cm macro mode
  

Box Contents:

• Digital Camera
• Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery,
• Battery Charger,
• USB cable,
• AV cable,
• Wrist Strap,
• CD-ROM,
  
• Manuals,
• Quick Start Guide,
• Warranty Card

Average box contents - The camera has a small amount of internal memory (26mb), and isn't supplied with a memory card. Purchase of an additional case is recommended to protect the metallic finish of the camera.

Battery usage: Battery life is rated at 210 shots according to CIPA standards - I was able to take over 180 shots before "battery empty" appeared. This is fairly average and not as good as the Fujifilm FinePix F30 - with a battery life rated at 580 shots.

Camera Operation and Options: The mode dial lets you choose from the following shooting modes: Auto, Manual, Image Stabilization, Movie, Playback Scene (Sport, Children, Indoor, Leaf, Snow, Sunset, Fireworks, Glass, Museum, Landscape, Night Landscape, Night Portrait), Panorama, Portrait.

Photo mode/menus: The 3" screen makes using the menus easy as the options are clear and easy to read. The menu system is generally easy to use and quite straightforward. It's fairly responsive and the playback mode is quite quick.

Picture Size / Quality: The camera takes the following size pictures, and the following number of pictures will fit in the provided memory:

As shown in the table above, higher quality images take a large amount of memory, and you can't fit very many photos in the 26mb of provided memory (simply treat it as a means of testing whether the camera works when you don't have a memory card), so a high capacity memory card is definitely recommended. There is a good choice regarding image size, quality and aspect ratios - with 16:9 and 3:2 ratio options available.

A large memory card is relatively cheap, and highly recommended, I would recommend a 512mb memory card, and preferably a 1gb memory card, as these are relatively affordable - the larger the memory card, the more photos you will be able to take. If you are likely to be away from a computer for a long time (such as when going on holiday) then the largest memory card you can afford would definitely be worth investing in. This camera takes only SD memory cards. Listed below are links to memory cards that will work with the GE E1040:

Find the latest prices for SD memory cards at Amazon.co.uk: 512mb: £4, 1gb (1000mb): £1, 2gb (2000mb): £3, 4gb (4000mb SDHC): £17 (with USB reader)
Need more help deciding what memory card to buy? Have a look at our guide to digital camera memory cards or our article what size memory card should I buy?

Speed: The camera switches on and can take its first photo in 5 seconds. Focusing is average at over half a second (0.6 seconds). The playback mode is quite quick. The camera shutter response seems quick when pre-focused (around 0.1 second reponse) - although shot to shot time was slow at 4 seconds (with review on without flash), and with a delay of just under 0.8 seconds between shots in the normal continuous mode. The flash recharge time didn't slow down that shot to shot time dramatically - with a delay of around 5 seconds between shots (flash isn't available in continuous mode). The cameras menus seemed responsive and zooming in and reviewing photos is all quick and easy to use. Moving around the different menu options is rapid.

Ease of use: The camera is very easy to use and has very easy to understand controls and buttons, with the camera mode dial making it easy to select the mode required. The controls on the back of the camera are easy to use and the mode switch and buttons are of an average size. The modes are easy to understand. The menus are responsive and easy to read. The camera is fairly compact and has little in the way of a hand grip on the front, and little on the the back to hold onto. There are an extensive collection of scene modes for all types of different situations.

Ergonomics and Buttons: (Feel, placement, labels, etc) The buttons are fairly easy to use and are kept quite simple (with a uniform layout throughout the GE camera range). The buttons are in a good position and easy to reach while composing shots. There seems to be a good amount of buttons for straight-forward digital camera use. The buttons feel okay and are an average size, the zoom control is slightly fiddly, and personally I prefer the zoom control to surround the shutter. The shutter release button is good. The buttons are labelled well (with small symbols and little text). I thought the camera felt okay ergonomically, although there is little in the way of a handgrip, instead the back of the camera is covered in screen, and the front on the camera is covered in a smooth shiney and slipperly surface. The compartments and covers seem well positioned and are easy to open, and the mode dial provides quick access to the main modes. The camera felt fairly solid with a stylish plastic body, however on the E850, the tripod mount is in an awkward position and the AV out cover is difficult to open. The focus assist lamp is in a strange position, occassionally covered by your hand when using the cameras.

Image Quality: Here are some real world sample photos taken in various settings, such as Inside, Outside, Macro, to demonstrate the quality of pictures taken and also show different features of the camera. Larger versions of these photos, plus more photos are available in the GE E1040 Sample Photo Gallery!

Inside:

Heather and Flower (ISO80)	Flash photo (ISO80)

Inside: The camera has good colour - It took a good "Heather and Flower" photo - and red-eye in this photo is low, with more noticable red-eye in the group photo. The flash is quite bright. The camera did a good job at focusing most of the time even in low-light, thanks to the focus assist lamp. Colour is well saturated.

ISO Noise Test: Noise: Noise is generally a bad thing - it removes detail, and gives a grainy effect over the image. With digital cameras noise can be a real problem as digital camera noise is often made out of blue, red or green dots. As the ISO setting increases, pictures tend to have more noise. Noise is most noticeable in dark areas of photos. The camera has an Automatic and Manual mode for ISO levels (ranging from ISO 80 - ISO3200).

Below you'll find the noise test image, plus actual pixel crops from the image taken at different ISO settings, compared with the 10 megapixel Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 and 8 megapixel Fujifilm FinePix F40fd.

Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 (10mp)	GE E1040 (10mp)	Fujifilm FinePix F40fd (8mp)

ISO Noise Test Photos - Flash is off. Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 on the left, GE E1040 in the middle, Fujifilm FinePix F40fd on the right. Any tonal difference is due to automatic white balance or metering differences.

Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 (10mp)	GE E1040 (10mp)	Fujifilm FinePix F40fd (8mp)
ISO80 - Actual Pixels	ISO80 - Actual Pixels	ISO80 - N/A
ISO100 - Actual Pixels	ISO100 - Actual Pixels	ISO100 - Actual Pixels
ISO200 - Actual Pixels	ISO200 - Actual Pixels	ISO200 - Actual Pixels
ISO400 - Actual Pixels	ISO400 - Actual Pixels	ISO400 - Actual Pixels
ISO800 - Actual Pixels	ISO800 - Actual Pixels	ISO800 - Actual Pixels
ISO1600 - Actual Pixels	ISO1600 - Actual Pixels	ISO1600 - Actual Pixels
ISO3200 - N/A	ISO3200 - Actual Pixels	ISO2000 - Actual Pixels

Detail at the lower ISO settings of ISO50, 100 and 200 seems good, and images appear quite sharp, with fairly low noise. However, as the ISO setting goes above 200 the noise starts to creep in more and more, and detail is lost. At ISO1600 detail is missing and noise is made up of lots of coloured blotches. At ISO3200 the whole image is a blur and coloured blotches of noise cover the image - the highest ISO setting on this camera is definitely to be avoided!

Outside:

Liverpool shops (ISO80)	Super Lamb Banana (ISO80)

Outside: The camera has quite rich, saturated colours, with good contrast. There was very good detail, and the camera took a number of very pleasing images outside, but areas with variations in brightness do show signs of 'bleeding' and purple fringing. In general 'fine' quality jpeg artefacts are not easily seen, however areas with strong contrasts benefit from use of the highest quality setting.

Zoom: This camera has a 4x optical zoom lens and a built in 4.5x digital zoom - in the case of this camera the digital zoom basically takes a smaller area of the photo and enlarges it using software blurring the image so that it is not pixellated. Generally it's best to avoid using digital zoom as it degrades the quality of the image and, often, better results can be obtained by using a photo package such as Adobe Photoshop. I've included examples below to show what the zoom is capable of.

Wide-angle	4x Optical Telephoto Zoom	Full Optical and Digital Zoom

Exposure: The photos of the clock tower are exposed well with detail in the dark areas as well as the lighter areas - exposure in other photos was generally good. I didn't spot any purple fringing in these photos. Vignetting was not noticed. It can be useful to under expose images with bright backgrounds (eg; sky) with use of exposure compensation.

Lens noise and zoom: The lens noise is average in operation. The camera gives good control over how you frame your subject with around 12 steps between wide and telephoto zoom.

Other Image Quality issues: Purple fringing was occasionally seen particularly in areas with high contrast.

Macro: The specifications say the closest you can get to the subject is 10cm, however, in use, you can actually focus as close as 2cm away from the subject. Best results are achieved use manual white balance and a more diffuse light source.

Timex Watch Macro	Actual Pixels (ISO100)

The custom white balance helps get better colours in the macro mode when using an un-natural light source. Noise seems low in this photo and detail and colour is good.

Video mode: The camera features a high resolution MPEG4 VGA 640 x 480 video mode at 30 fps with sound. Video quality was good and the compression is good - a 22 second video recorded at 640 x 480 took 8 megabytes. Optical zoom is unavailable while recording a video.

Conclusion

Summary: The General Imaging E1040 is an interesting camera that wants to go beyond what most cameras provide, instead of the normal 3x optical zoom lens, and 2.5" screen that is standard on the majority of cameras, the GE E1040 provides a 4x optical zoom lens, a large 3" screen, and a 10 megapixel sensor. The whole GE range features face detection focus, high ISO settings, digital anti-shake, panoramic mode and easy to use scene modes. The image quality of the GE E1040 was quite good, with bright, vibrant, highly saturated colours, and low noise levels most of the time, however purple fringing was noticable and images were occassionaly soft. One of the main strengths of the E1040 is it's ease of use, you just pick up the camera and start using it, however it's main weakness was the general slow operating speeds! The zoom control was also quite fiddly. Depending on availability and pricing it may be worth considering the E1040 especially if you can pick it up cheap, however, you are likely to be disappointed by the speed of the camera.

GE E1040 Rating: Average (7/10) Available for £95 - or Get the best price below!

What I like:

• Very good value for money
• Very easy to use
• Large 3" screen shows the resulting photos with good clarity.
• Highly saturated photos
• Low noise and good detail
• Lots of options
• MPEG4 Video recording.
  

What I don't like:

• Generally slow in operation
• Somewhat large compared to most other point and shoot cameras
• ISO800 and above photos take longer to process (slowing down shot to shot time)
• Face-detection focus mode shows big smiley face in front of subject
• Noticable red-eye

Additional Test Images are viewable in the GE E1040 Sample Photo Gallery.
Tested with firmware version 1.03B7. Newer version available from GE.