When you move beyond 7x or 8x, the zoom bar on the screen turns green to denote that the quality will be significantly lessoned.
From my experiences with useing, and ill go out ona limb here and say, hundreds of digital cameras over the course of my lifetime, the majority of them work in the following fasion...
When the zoom indicator changes color, or moves into a segmented, or greys out box, or makes any other change in movement, or color, or location that does not follow the same layout as the rest of nearfield zoom indicators, there is a high probibility, and likelyhood that the camera has switched to a digital zoom mode.
That said, given the noticible dithering in the photos at anything beyond 5x zoom, i would say its a fair estimate that they are using a digital zoom for anything beyond that.
Where their marketing dept felt that they could say the camera has a 10x optical zoom is absolutely beyond me, because obviously, it doesnt. My only guess is that they are useing optics for focusing in on long range objects, or for focusing on nearfield objects with a tight zoom. Thus still maintaining an "opticaly assisted zoom"...when in actuality, its jsut a focusing mechanism just like every other camera out there of similar quality and features.
Also, for my own personal preference, id like to see rars or zip of the original raw photos. And preferably comparison photos for the differnt levels of photo quality, to compare continuity between the largest, and smallest photo settings. And also a comparison of full wide, full zoom betweenteh various quality settings too, again to see how much the digital zoom will degrade teh image quality in those various situations.
After reading the review, im left with a bit of an empty feeling, that i want to know more about the camera, its capabilities, and what its capable of doing. Granted, im not looking for a digital image solutions camera review with color wheel reproduction flow charts, and grey scale tests, and all that nonsence that no consumer grade camera should be made to endure (and no consumer should ever bother to read), but i still want more technicle insight then what i got. Because the pros and cons kind of left me scratching my head, and the score, while im sure deserving, i really didnt get WHY it deserved it...that make sense?
Anyway, if its any consolation, i will probibly be looking to get a Nikon when i go Camera shopping later this year.