It's hard to believe that it's only six months ago that Ricoh brought out its stylish CX1 compact digital camera and already the company has produced a successor with a range of new and improved features.

However, when you take the camera out of the box you'd be hard pushed to see any immediate changes from the CX1, as the CX2 has the same jet black exterior and the layout of controls and functions is virtually identical. Width (101.5mm) and height (58.3mm) are the same and only the depth (29.4mm as opposed to 27.9mm) gives a clue to the biggest enhancement: the replacement of the 28 - 200mm 7.1x optical zoom lens with a 28 - 300mm 10.7x wide-angle zoom.

Otherwise, you still have the bright 3.0-inch, 920,000-pixel LCD display at the back with the same simple, easy to manage control buttons alongside. The zoom control (still a little too tightly recessed), power button and mode dial remain just as accessible on the top right and the mode dial settings continue to offer the useful Dynamic Range double shot mode (now expanded with an Auto alternative), two custom settings as well as Auto and Easy.

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Looking into the menus you discover there's now a clutch of extra shooting modes such as High-contrast B&W, Discreet (which disables flash, operating sounds and AF auxiliary light when in museum environments) and Miniaturize, which gives you that ‘looking down from the top of a building' with blurred top and bottom effect.

Surprisingly, Ricoh has only just got round to adjusting Portrait mode to accept automatic face recognition and this has been added to Easy mode. The video mode remains the weakest weapon in the CX2's arsenal, though, with the highest resolution available stuck at a disappointing 640 x 480 at 30fps when so many of its competitors are offering HD quality video capture.

On the other hand, high-speed continuous shooting has been upped to 5 frames/sec at the maximum 9-megapixel resolution and the focal capabilities have been increased to include new Pre-AF and Continuous AF functions, which means you're more likely to capture crisp close-ups now that the focus alters with movement even when the shutter isn't half depressed. There are minor improvements in playback as well, with up to 20 images able to be flagged (the previous limit was 3) and image trimming can now be performed in a 1:1 square-format frame.

The image quality remains as consistently impressive as with the CX1 and that's because Ricoh has retained its Smooth Imaging Engine IV and the 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor, although the increased telephoto reach means the image stabilisation technology occasionally struggles.

Unfortunately for those who've only just bought the CX1, Ricoh has now expanded the telephoto reach of the CX2, thrown in a few funky scene modes and improved AF capabilities. But, alas, there's no improvement in video mode.