The appeal of the Nikon Coolpix L5 is unfortunately only external. Despite being well specified and well built, the L5 lacks in image quality and performance. The most serious limitation of this digital camera is the inability to set ISO sensitivity. This means that the camera selects the ISO sensitivity at all times and therefore selects the quality of your images. Loss of details starts just above ISO 100. While images are quite sharp at low ISO, the lens shows a significant amount of edge softness and barrel distortion. In terms of speed, the L5 is among the slowest compact digital cameras. Even though the Nikon L5 has a few things going for it, they are far outweighed by the lack of control over its poor image quality.

There so much competition in the compact camera arena that there is no reason to settle for something like the Nikon Coolpix L5. For example, the excellent, but more expensive, Canon Powershot A710 IS is superior in every point to the L5. The 8 megapixels Kodak Easyshare C875 is another good and affordable high-resolution compact digital camera with 5X optical zoom. The cheaper Canon Powershot A540 is also a good alternative to the L5, although its has a slightly shorter zoom.