The controls are minimal and simple. The OK/MENU button calls up the onscreen menu system and once displayed it acts as the "accept" button. The button to the right turns the LCD on/off when in Record mode and acts as the Play button when the lens cover is closed. Sliding the lens cover open turns the camera on in Record mode and closing it turns the camera off.

The 4-way buttons are multi-purpose, when the menu is displayed they let you navigate the options, when in Play mode they let you select images from the thumbails or move forward or backward or zoom-in or display the index. When in Record mode the Up and Down buttons control the digital zoom, the Left button selects the flash mode and the Right button enables macro mode.

The D-100 has a high-quality 4.5mm f2.8 autofocus Olympus lens with a variable digital zoom up to 2X (35mm to 70mm equivalent in 35mm photography). The normal autofocus range is 19.6 inches to infinity, the Macro mode covers from 4 to 19.6 inches.

The eyelevel optical viewfinder shows about 94% of the captured image and lets you use this digital camera just like a regular film camera. The two LEDs let you know the status of the flash and autofocus.

On the side are the I/O ports. On top is the USB port, the D-100 features USB AutoConnect technology. Just plug the camera directly into any USB-configured computer running Windows 2000, Windows Me and Mac OS 8.6 and higher, these computers will mount and recognize the Brio D-100 automatically without installing drivers. For users with Windows 98 the necessary USB drivers are included on disc.

In the center is the Video Out port for connecting the camera to a television set for playback of images. The format of the video signal is NTSC or PAL depending on the region the camera is sold in. On the bottom is the DC IN jack for connecting an optional AC power adapter.

Images are stored on 3.3v SmartMedia flash memory cards. Olympus supplies an 8MB card with the camera and any size card up to 64MB may be used.

The D-100 is powered by either one Olympus CR-V3 lithium (supplied) or by two standard AA size batteries (alkaline, lithium, NiMH type).