BestInClass Helps You To Find The Best Digital Camera

There’s nothing quite like finding an actual, honest, unbiased opinion, especially in the technology arena.

If you could get some sort of logic applied to the opinions as well, the value would go through the roof. That’s the whole basis of BestInClass.

Find a group of experts who actually know what they are talking about, assemble their opinions, tabulate the answers, and present them in a way that actually helps you to make decisions. For free.

There’s a catch, right? Well, aside from some harmless Google ads, it seems not. Come and take a look with me.

When you visit the site you’re presented with a basic options page:

Click the View Recommendations button.

An algorithm, claimed to have taken two years to develop, presents you with some recommendations, in order of preference. You’re either going to love or hate this. It’s something to do with being told by a computer what to do.

In any case, for the settings above, the recommendation was fairly clear.

Okay, now I’m a Canon guy, so I’d be fine with this, but if I had some reason to dislike the first option there are a string of three others below, including another Canon and two Panasonics.

So, a couple of things. Why should I trust the recommendations?

BestInClass has a group of experts to evaluate the cameras and provide a number of different opinions, and there is no sales bias. Doubtless there is some user bias, but that’s what recommendations are all about.

So, what if your requirements are more complex than can be captured in those initial questions?

Easy. Answer some more. On the left side of the results page is a huge list of tick boxes to narrow your choices.

For instance, the first box allows you to choose the brands of cameras you’re interested in.

The default is to search all of the available brands, but you can restrict the search to whichever brands you prefer.

Clicking the More button adds Fuji, Casio, Kodak, Leica, Olympus and Pentax to the list.

By the way, there’s no update button here. The list just changes when you release the slider.

Simple, right? Some options use a combination of live sliders and update buttons. Just have a play.

Clicking on a particular brand presents you with an Update button. Clicking that will present you with a new list of recommendations.

Time for a confession. A couple of cameras back I had the option of walking in and picking up a silver Panasonic camera, or waiting a week for the same model in black. I waited, so it would be hypocritical for me to make fun of the Color tickboxes, though I’m tempted. Pink?

Okay, so you have a resulting list of recommendations. Let’s dig into that a little more, by taking a look at the leader.

A summary about the camera is presented here, but if you need more detail, clicking on the link here, or the large image to the right, will take you to a detailed page for the recommendation by that particular expert.

You’ll see that the camera you were looking at is not necessarily in the number one spot on the Expert Recommendation page, because now we are only looking at the opinions of a single expert.

This page includes in-depth analysis, and comparisons. Pros and cons of the recommended camera are supplied (in this case the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which is, you must admit, a hell of a mouthful for a little camera).

Also included is a comparison chart for the recommendations.

Back on the initial recommendation page there are also links to opinions from other websites and customers, along with Amazon purchase links, and price comparisons. In all, a huge amount of valuable information.

So, is it perfect?

No, not yet. There seem to be some holes in the coverage, especially where new or elderly cameras are concerned. Don’t get me started on the fact that it’s all in US dollars, as well.

But it’s most helpful if you’re in the market. Now if only I could work out a way to get a good price for my EOS 30D.

You can also get some good comparison action from some of the competition too. Check out TestFreaks for a broader product base than just cameras, or allCamReviews for a custom Google search for cameras. Kallow provides for a rather, well, shallow look, specialising in single recommendations for each category.

Have a play, and let me know how you do. Are there some other sites you would use for this purpose?  Let me know in the comments.