The Canon Ixus i5 is the next in a very successful range of digital camera product from Canon, the Ixus 500 is still our number one recommendation for point and shoot photography and a fantastic designer gadget to boot, but the i5 seems to take the Ixus to a new level where compact style really meets quality photography.

Firstly when you pick up an Ixus i5 you feel the quality of the unit, the all metal body while light (100 grams) feels like its be honed from something much larger, there are no flimsy bits just a good solid case which is designed to fit nicely in your palm. Inside there are good and bad points, first the good, the excellent 5 mega pixel sensor is combined with Canons' Digic logic systems which claim to provide a much better automatic white balance and exposure control. For anyone like us (point and shoot merchants) the thought of wading through a menu system, no matter how good to set exposure and balance is a terrifying one, its hardly the way to act cool at a party, so we tend to leave everything set in auto but this often results in poor images with coloured hues and under exposed night shots.

Not so with the Canon i5, some night shots we snapped were positively David bailey like, well maybe not that good but the "iSnaps" assistant seems to do whatever its job is meant to be, sorting out exposure and colour balance leaving you to sneak up on the unsuspecting party host. Another bugbear is auto focus systems, in the past we've spent more time fighting them than taking a shot, once again Canon deploy their AiAF 9 point system here with good results, while its not the best at dealing with off centre objects it does an admirable job at this price point.

Image quality is top notch, we loved the vivid colours and sharp images, even the low light shots were impressive without some of the grainy artefacts seen on other digicams we tested, the 5 mega pixels should be plenty for anyone who wants to print at up to A3 size which is more than ample for most of us mortals.

Now pretty much our only gripe was the decision not to provide an optical zoom, instead Ixus i5 has a 6.5 x digital zoom on the 39mm lens, which although it does the job is a poor relation to a good optical zoom like that found on its Ixus cousins. Of course the decision to ditch the optics does keep the weight and overall size down but for us its one snip too far and possibly a victory of design over substance. That said the digital zoom looked ok at up to 3 x before the pictures got a bit nasty, as always we'd recommend taking the full image and cropping using Photoshop or similar afterwards.

There are the obligatory extras that every digicam has to have, there is the 30 second VGA movie record feature and some snazzy if rather weird photo effects like Low Sharpening, Vivid Colour, Neutral, Sepia and B&W.

Storage is provided by industry standard SD cards which is cool and the unit ships with a 32mb one which is a little on the small side. So we'd recommend an upgrade to a 256mb one if you really want to make the most of the Ixus i5, there is also USB connectivity for hooking the camera directly to your PC to download images. The i5 also comes endowed with pict bridge compatibility allowing it to work directly with the latest generation of enabled photo printers thus removing the need for a host PC.

Lastly there is the experience of driving and owning an Ixus i5, size wise you can't fault it, it tucks nicely in a pocket and was smaller than many mobile phones at the party at 90.3 x 47 x 18.5mm  the 1.5" TFT screen is good and bright for use in direct sunlight which is essential as there is no optical viewfinder, the menu system is simple enough to use and there is easy access to the basic shooting modes.

Overall another winner from Canon the Ixus i5 is an excellent well rounded product, we like the size, weight and fell of the unit, picture quality is top notch as is the overall ease of use, SD cards are our favoured storage and the battery lasted us all night, we'd have liked a digital zoom but then you can't have everything you want can you?

One sale at £239 the canon Ixus i5 is available in 5 colours (we liked the red the best) and is sure to be on many Christmas wish lists in the coming months.

More Digital Cameras -

[ Up ] [ Sony DSCT3 ] [ Pentax Optio 555 ] [ Olympus Mju 400 Digital Camera ] [ Canon Ixus i5 ] [ Canon Ixus I ] [ Canon Ixus 500 ] [ Sony DSCT7 Review ] [ Olympus Stylus Verve ] [ Pentax Optio S4 ] [ Sony DSC T1 ]