The μ9000 (Mju 9000) is one of the largest compact cameras produced by Olympus in a long while. Even with the zoom retracted it measures a fairly bulky 96 x 60 x 31mm, meaning you may be hard pushed to slip this into a pocket without it being a burden. It's actually quite a refreshing change, though, to be able to grasp your hands around a compact and keep a good grip without having to dab small controls.

Just like its sister model, the mju 7000, Olympus has settled for large, clear block buttons for the μ9000. Sitting on the right-hand side of the rear body this allows enough room for a bright 2.7-inch LCD screen but it also means it's possible to operate the function buttons with the flat of your thumb. This is perfect for those with slightly larger hands as it means you can work through the camera's menu or adjust exposure settings freely.

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The Mju 9000 is quick to power up, taking just a couple of seconds for the zoom to protrude from the camera body with quite some force. A small dial sits adjacent to a dedicated thumb rest on the rear face and this acts as the main shooting control for the camera. With a quick rotation it's possible to switch between Playback, Video, Auto, Beauty or Scene Mode without having to delve into a complicated menu.

Olympus prides the Mju 9000 on its ability to capture wide-angle shots. With a 10x wide optical zoom range this is the equivalent of being able to shoot between 28-280mm on a 35mm camera. Although full zoom can sometimes lead to a touch of blur, the Dual Image Stabilisation feature on this camera does a good job of keeping everything sharp and it's responsive to the zoom control too.

If you prefer to take a back foot approach to your photography, there are plenty of auto options to try out and these go some way towards helping you achieve impressive results without having to worry about your camera settings.

Of course, if you choose to opt for a feature such as Intelligent Auto Mode it's fair to say you should be able to put a lot of faith in the camera's ability to adjust everything from white balance, ISO and exposure without much input. With this option selected we were initially very impressed with the camera's ability to tweak the focal settings, especially when attempting to capture close-up subjects. Changes in aperture and shutter speed were clearly displayed on the screen and it was also obvious the camera's metering system managed to do a good job of calculating the best exposure settings.

However, the Intelligent Auto mode doesn't give the user any chance to step in at all, not even to switch off the flash. This meant that shots showing good promise on the LCD monitor were often spoilt by the Mju 9000's insistence on bleaching out shots with a very harsh full flash. Those photographing in 'no flash' areas may find this setting to be more trouble than it's worth.

Thankfully, though, it is possible to reign control over the flash when using the other more creative shooting modes such as Beauty. This is crucial, as with the skin-smoothing in-camera editing function the results look far more impressive if the subject is captured in natural light.

If you're set on photographing pleasing portraits, the Face Detection feature that's used to adjust the focusing and exposure settings on the camera does a good job of spotting faces in the frame, even if they're not standing very still.

Beauty Mode automatically enhances portraits by smoothing out the skin, but there are plenty of other editing features on the μ9000, helping the user to tweak shots without the need for uploading to a computer and using image-editing software.

Easily accessible through the main menu it's possible to resize shots to prepare them for web upload, carry out a crop or convert them to black and white or sepia. This works brilliantly and the camera will automatically create a duplicate copy so there's no danger of accidentally editing a vital shot; you can always change your mind. A Perfect Fix option also gives you the means to improve a shot by adjusting the shadow levels or getting rid of red-eye in a portrait.

Check out the spec list for the Olympus μ9000 and you may see a reference to a 'YouTube Upload Function'. Although there are some cameras out there that do have scope for prepping content to upload to the web, this isn't one. In order to able to do this you actually need to load up the Olympus Master 2 software that comes bundled in with the camera. This management software allows you to sort shots into dedicated photo albums but it's also possible to use it as an alternative to the in-camera editing features, with scope for carrying out red-eye reduction or tone correction.

When it comes to image quality the Olympus Mju 9000 is a fairly reliable performer. However, shots from the 12-megapixel sensor can lack punch and we were unimpressed by the drab pictures and often desaturated colours captured both indoors and outdoors. On a bright but cloudy day the shots captured in dedicated Landscape scene mode looked very gloomy and unappealing. There also seemed to be some over-softening going on. This was more apparent when photographing a scene with lots of detail. This problem was a lot worse if the subject was back-lit.

The Dual Image Stabilisation helped keep active shots nice and sharp. However, detail was lost once the sensitivity was pushed past ISO 200. Overall, though, it was easy enough to snap subjects with very little fuss.

There's no denying the Olympus Mju 9000 is very easy to use. It's a perfect option for those who want a simple point-and-click device with added reliability and rugged build. Those who are concerned about image quality may be disappointed by the lack of colour saturation and the soft details and, although it has video capture features, the VGA format looks a little lacklustre compared to competing models capable of capturing HD. For those who don't have any image editing knowledge, the in-camera fixes are a handy addition.