Canon Ixus 80 IS - Expert Reviews

Award: Recommended!

Review summary: Two of the best small compacts on the market. Quality differences are on a knife edge, but the Canon wins for superior features and handling.

Verdict: Both have a full complement of pre-set exposures for the likes of beach, snow, underwater and night modes. Macro, exposure compensation, timer and flash options (like slow-shutter and red-eye reduction) are also close at hand. Both offer DPOF printing ...

Review summary: Sleek design, superb image capability and intuitive controls make the SD1100 a solid buy.

Review summary: The Canon Powershot SD1100 IS represents its series with good all-around performance without standing out in any way. It produces nice images with consumer-oriented color, bright print-ready exposure and is quite fast and responsive. There is nothing ...

Pros: Nicely saturated colors, Accurate but bright exposure system, Fast and responsive, Good focusing speed, Great LCD visibility, Easy to use interface

Cons: Poor white-balance under artificial lighting, Above average image noise above ISO 200, Chromatic aberrations, Corner softness, Weak flash, Poor battery life

Review summary: The Canon SD1100 IS Digital ELPH includes an eight megapixel 1/2.5" CCD imager and a Canon-branded 3x optical zoom lens with image stabilization, which covers a fairly standard range of 38-114mm equivalent -- a moderate wide angle to a moderate ...

Pros: Optical image stabilization ; DIGIC III image processor just like the big boys ; Facial detection for portraits and to confirm those smiles afterwards ; Small, sleek body design ; High resolution LCD ; Good performance figures, especially for a ...

Cons: Flash washes out extreme macro shots ; Moderate chromatic aberration at wide angle ; Soft corners at wide angle ; High contrast in harsh lighting ; Flash takes just under 10 seconds to recharge after full-power shot ; Very small MMC card included ; ...

Verdict: Exposure is fully automatic, but the user can tweak it with 2.0EV of exposure compensation and four metering modes to handle difficult lighting, including a mode which ties metering to the camera's face detection system

Review summary: The Canon IXUS 80IS compact digital camera delivers equally, both in terms of style and in performance.

Pros: Speedy performance, optical viewfinder, low shutter lag

Cons: Minor issues with image noise and barreling

Verdict: A benchmark in stylish compacts that impresses in every area of its specification.