Don’t Buy The Nikon Coolpix L22: TheBatteryFlap Will Break.
 by
 James Paul Zaworski
 Don’t get me wrong, I really like Nikon cameras.  My father raised all of his kids on Nikon 35 mm SLR film cameras, and so I’ve been fully indoctrinated in the “Nikon tradition”.  I have done so to such an extent that I have purchased four, that’s right, four Nikon Coolpix cameras in the past five years!  I have had a good run with the L series, but that run has finally come to an end.
What I Like About the Nikon Coolpix L22.

Size. 
This is a very small camera, and can fit in your pocket.  When traveling, a portable imaging device is always ideal.   I would carry mine with me when going out, nearly every day as I lived and worked in mainland China for four years, and you never know what you are going to run across that is picture worthy.

Features. 

The Nikon Coolpix L22 has 12.0 megapixels, resulting in very crisp, clear shots.  While there are other cameras out there with more megapixels, how many megapixels do you need for a clear shot?  For my purposes, 12.0 megapixels is enough. 

It has a 3x optical zoom lens, which will get you closer to your subject.  Since I’m not doing any wildlife photography, a 3x zoom is enough for the typical needs of the casual photographer.  I took some great beach shots in Sanya with it. 

A 2.5 inch liquid crystal display allows you to see what you are shooting, and also has, to the delight of all digital camera owners, playback function to see if you want to keep or scrap the photo.  There are many features for editing accessible from the menu function and peering into the 2.5 inch screen.  Navigating the various functions needs to be learned, but its pretty intuitive once you press a few buttons.  You can choose between different modes, so you can take still shots or movies.   

With auto focus, and face priority functions and reduction of red eye, and ISO 800 for low lighting and an auto flash, this camera has all kinds of nifty features. 

SD memory cards are standard for this camera, and I’ve used 1, 2 and 4 MB cards without any difficulty. 

Two AA batteries (make sure they are the powerful ones, specially designed for digital devices), power this little baby.  However, it seems that this little silver beauty is an energy hog, as I seem to have to replace the batteries often.  If you use the energizer lithium batteries, you may get one thousand pix of battery life out of it, but if you forget and leave the camera running in your pocket, well, two hundred maybe. 

Color. 

It’s red, nice and shiny. 

Price. 
I paid about $90 for this camera including shipping from Amazon.com back in July of 2011.
What I Don’t Like About the Nikon Coolpix L22: TheBatteryFlap Durability.
I use my pocket digitals quite a lot, having taken 10,000 photos with the three cameras in that period of time.  The L series had a lot going for it: small, easy to use, lots of cool features.  I have an L8, an L16 and then bought the L22 last July when I was back in the states.  The L series has one major design flaw that they never seemed to address: the battery flap will break eventually, and then you have to jury rig the thing with tape, some super rubber band, or just hold it closed so the camera has power to take a photo!
I suppose that I am just a “heavy user” of my digital media (computers,  digital cameras, etc.).  I take a lot of photos, and end up not only changing the AA batteries often, but also take out the SD card (which shares the same compartment with the batteries) to put into my computer, and do a lot of photo sharing on social media sites and photography sites.  
Perhaps the “nominal user” will not face this problem. 
As it stands, my Nikon Coolpix L22’s battery flap broke in less than six months, a record for this sort of thing happening!  The L6 took about three years to break, the L18 took about two years to break, and this one a short six months!  I even took extra precautions with this one while taking it “in the field”, like always storing it in its carrying case, being careful not to drop it, etc.  The L18 was dropped twice and still held steady and firm for another year. 
I ended up buying another Coolpix just last month, the S2500, primarily because it has a new design and a rechargeable battery and can limit the amount of time I spend opening and closing the battery flap by using the USB connector.  I do not think that this is a fluke, as it has occurred in all three L series Nikon Coolpix that I have purchased.  The camera is under warranty, but I am living and working in Macao, and did not bring the original receipt with me.  I have had to resort to getting it fixed by a guy in Shenzhen, a jack of all trades who super glued the doo hickey back on so that the battery case shuts properly.  
But, in my opinion, this is above and beyond the call of duty for maintenance in this camera.  The Coolpix S series has a very different design for the battery flap, which seems to be much more durable.
Based on my experience, I cannot recommend this camera.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 90
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use