Average to slightly better than average performance for a basic point & shoot model. Compared to other compact digital cameras in its general category, the Olympus Stylus 410 comes in about even with the pack, perhaps slightly faster in some areas such as continuous shooting speed and shutter lag when prefocused. Full autofocus shutter lag is about average, with a range of 0.83-0.85 second. Shutter response is very fast when the camera is "prefocused" by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the shot itself. Continuous-mode speed is pretty good, at just over two frames/second, for up to seven large/fine images.

Power

The Olympus Stylus 410 uses a custom rechargeable LiIon battery for power.

Pretty good battery life for a compact digital camera. Small digital cameras often suffer in the battery life department, as there just isn't a lot of room for a beefy battery inside their tiny cases. The Olympus Stylus 410 does very well in this regard though, with worst-case run times of more than two hours, stretching to over nine hours (!) when the LCD is left turned off. (Unfortunately, the poor accuracy of the optical viewfinder means you'll need to rely much more heavily on the LCD than you might otherwise.)

Storage Capacity

The Olympus Stylus 410 stores its photos on xD memory cards, and a 32 MB card is included with the camera. (I strongly recommend buying at least a 64 MB card, preferably a 128 MB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings.) The chart below shows how many images can be stored on the included 32 MB card at each size/quality setting.

Download Speed

The Olympus Stylus 410 connects to a host computer via a USB interface. Downloading files to my Sony desktop running Windows XP (Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz), I clocked it at 528 KBytes/second, a good if unspectacular rate. (Cameras with slow USB interfaces run as low as 300 KB/s, cameras with fast v1.1 interfaces run as high as 600 KB/s. Cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces run as fast as several megabytes/second.)