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 left turns the LCD on/off in Record mode, serves as the Quick Review button (push twice quickly to view last picture) and is 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 (in Play mode they operate the zoomed playback and index functions), the Left button selects macro focus mode and the Right button selects the flash mode.

The D-230 has an all-glass, 5.5mm f2.8 Olympus lens (36mm in 35mm photography), it consists of 5 elements in 4 groups including 1 aspherical lens.

The iESP multi-pattern autofocus has a normal range of 19.5 inches to infinity, the Macro mode covers from 4 inches to infinity.

The eyelevel optical viewfinder shows about 87% of the captured image and lets you use this digital camera just like a regular film camera. The LEDs lets you know the status of the flash and camera.

On the side are the I/O ports. On top is the USB port. The D-230 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-230 automatically without installing drivers. For users with Windows 98 the necessary USB drivers are included on disc.

The DC IN jack for connecting an optional AC power adapter.

The D-230 does not have a video out feature.

Images are stored on removeable 3.3v SmartMedia flash memory cards, Olympus supplies a 16MB card with panorama capability. Any size card up to 128MB may be used.

The D-230 is powered by either one Olympus CR-V3 lithium (supplied) or by two standard AA size batteries (alkaline, lithium, NiMH type).