GE Create by Jason Wu review

After dressing First Lady Michelle Obama for her cover shoot in Vogue magazine and then at the Presidential Inauguration balls in November 2008, Jason Wu became one of the hottest names in fashion. It helped him to win Fashion Group International’s Rising Star award for 2008.

GE has played on Jason Wu’s star status and hopes that the camera will attract fans of his clothing designs and those who want a luxurious camera. Wu designed the camera’s visual appearance and includes his trademark grey leather finish. There’s even a matching grey leather wrist strap and case included with the camera, also designed by him.

There’s no battery or memory card compartment; instead, there’s a fully retractable USB connector which, combined with the built-in software, allows you to charge the camera and transfer photos from its 4GB of built-in memory to your computer. This is undoubtedly an interesting decision to make, but we think it’s the right one for such a camera.

We showed the Create Leather to a number of friends familiar with Wu’s work. They used the camera for a while and said that it captures the elegance of his work with different textures, such as the luxury leather finish on the front panel, and the simplicity of its controls.

There are a select few options for the user to change, which include enabling or disabling the flash and setting a self-timer, with everything else handled automatically by the camera. There’s a menu available too, but this is only available when you switch the camera on.

The options are very limited, with no option to select the ISO setting for example, and it’s annoying that you can’t access the menu without switching the camera on and off. As a casual camera, this is fine, but for those wanting something a little more advanced you’ll be left wanting a bit more.