Some of the biggest decisions in life rest on a simple choice between two factions: FF or FG; Catholic or Protestant; Liverpool or Man U; Canon or Nikon.

I'm being flippant, of course. In each case, several alternatives are possible and if you're remotely interested in photography you could pick from half a dozen other brands of camera, including Olympus, Sony and Fuji.

But for the purist, the choice of 'religion' comes down to either Canon or Nikon.

As per the Jesuits' famous maxim, once you've been indoctrinated, you stick with them for life. That's because both camps have bent over backwards to ensure that the equipment, such as lenses, that you bought years ago will, by and large, still work with today's cameras.

Nikon's latest pair of digital SLRs make a play for the uncommitted but enthusiastic snapper looking to move up a gear from a small compact camera.

Most people recognise that these much bigger SLRs deliver seriously good pictures but feel intimidated by their complexity.

The 10-megapixel D3000 possesses much of the smarts of its more expensive brothers but offers a gentle guiding hand to the novice who knows what they want but is clueless about how to go about capturing it on the camera.

Maybe you'd like a nice, soft-focus portrait. Or maybe you need help snapping a flighty toddler. Or maybe you fancy a landscape shot with more in focus than the tree in the foreground.

This Guide mode in the D3000 expands on the Scenes option found in many cameras and explains in simple terms on the LCD how it works and what it's best for.

Its more advanced options then enable you to experiment. with settings to improve your results.

Once you know where you're going, the D3000 allows you all the manual control you'd expect from an SLR.

Its elder sibling, the D5000, looks almost identical and comes with the same 18-55mm image-stabilised lens.

It distinguishes itself with several key improvements, though none could be considered essential to the beginner.

Most useful is the articulated rear screen, which flips and rotates to enable you to see from odd angles what you're shooting. It also can be used to frame your shots instead of just via the viewfinder.

The D5000 records surprisingly decent high-definition video in a wide range of lighting conditions. But it won't replace a camcorder, not least because its autofocus won't move once you've started recording.

The raw specs give it a leg up over the D3000, including higher resolution at 12MP, better performance in low light (ISO as high as 6400) and more shots per second.

Whichever of the two you plump for, the Nikons make for an excellent introduction to keen photography. Comparative models from Canon are no slouches at roughly the same price points, so it's up to you to choose your religion.

www.nikon.ie

Nokia N97 Mini,

€220 on cheapest Vodafone contract

It's unexpected for a younger colleague to outperform a more powerful cousin but the N97 Mini is a better touchscreen phone in most ways than the N97.

As the name suggests, Nokia put the porky N97 on a diet while fixing a number of the serious problems that bedevilled the original. It loses a bit of screen size (3.5-inch to 3.2) and some on-board storage (32GB down to 8GB) but no big deal.

Nokia's talent for beautiful hardware comes to the fore, with the Mini concealing a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out on a strong hinge. When folded up, the sleek, attractive Mini fits comfortably in a pocket.

Where Nokia runs aground is in its software. The Finns took their sweet time riding the iPhone wave and even after several revisions its touchscreen interface is still second division.

Menus sometimes need a double-tap or a single-tap with little indication of which. The screen itself is unresponsive compared with even the likes of the Palm Pre or the best Google Android phones.

It's far easier yet less satisfactory to use the keyboard to navigate around the menus.

The Ovi Store, Nokia's equivalent of iTunes for phones like the N97 Mini, was described earlier this month by one of its own executives as a "stopgap". It has a long way to go to catch up with rivals' offerings.

Nokia still produces many fine phones in the low to medium price bracket but it seems to have lost its way at the top end in the face of fierce competition from Apple and Google phones.

www.nokia.ie

- Ronan Price

Irish Independent