The Canon IXUS 210's blend of style, sophistication and smart picture-taking technology should appeal to quality-conscious photographers who don't want to spend half their time with their noses in the manual. This 14.1-megapixel compact camera comes with a large touchscreen interface and a 5x zoom too, which is why you'll have to pay around £250 to get your hands on it.
Smooth porker
The 210 offers Canon's traditional IXUS build quality. It's porky compared to some of the other models in the range, but its smooth contours mean it should still slip into your pocket quite easily.
The 210 is particularly versatile, thanks to its 5x, extra-wide-angle, 24-120mm zoom, and the 88mm (3.5-inch) touchscreen on the back looks especially smart. The display takes up the whole width of the camera, leaving no room for any knobs or buttons. It doesn't need them, though, making do with a simple slider switch on the top for choosing the movie, program-auto-exposure or full-auto-exposure modes.
The interface works very well. The 210 has a 16:9 display, which means there are black bars at the sides when you're shooting stills, but Canon's used these areas to house the touch-sensitive icons that adjust the camera settings. The size and 461,000-pixel resolution of the display mean that the image doesn't feel cramped. The display comes into its own when you're shooting 16:9, 720p, high-definition movies.
There are no new, headline-grabbing technologies in this camera, but what there is works well. The automatic scene-selection mode chooses from no fewer than 22 different scene types, whereas most other cameras use just a handful of the most common. The 'smart flash' control does a good job of balancing flash with daylight in outdoor portraits, for example, and the 'touch autofocus' lets you select any point in the frame for focusing, and then follows the subject if it or the camera moves.
Mushy pictures
This camera certainly has some weaknesses, however. The quality of its HD movies is fine but you can't zoom while filming, unless you use the digital zoom, which ruins the picture quality.
The worst shortcoming, though, is the 5x lens, or the processing system, or both. Coarse, high-contrast outlines look fine, but subtler details are often blurred into a kind of milky mush. A large part of the problem is Canon's attempt to cram 14.1 megapixels into a 1/2.3-inch sensor.
The lens makes this problem even worse, softening up badly towards the edges of the picture and displaying the kind of chromatic aberration you might expect in a budget camera -- not one that costs as much as the 210. The 210's lack of any really killer features wouldn't be a problem if you just wanted a good-quality pocket camera, but its disappointing picture quality means you don't even get that.
Conclusion
The IXUS 210 is a very poor effort from Canon. It's pleasing to look at and use, but, when you pay this kind of money for a prestige camera, you expect much better picture quality than the 210 offers. Canon should stop chasing megapixels and take a proper look at image quality instead.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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HarryC 15 August 2010
Good: Canon Quality Construction, Reputation and decent battery life.
Bad: Auto settings and price. I wish it came with AAA batteries.
Comment: First I am not particularly blown away by touchscreen controls. I look for good quality pictures from any camera that is forgiving for a novice photographer no matter the controls.
After many practice shots, I need to amend my review given on 14th August as follows:
The camera is very good so long as you understand its limitations where zooming, lighting and scenes settings take priority. If you understand the limitations, you then have to control your urge to go beyond quality defining parameters with the expectation that you will get magical results just by clicking.
Having said that, the camera does take good pictures if you do not push it over limits that are discoverable through practice and familiarization with the controls. I still don't like what I paid for it seeing that I could have gotten it for a cheaper price from other sources online.
HarryC 14 August 2010
Good: Canon's International Brand Reputation. Good close range indoor pictures in the dark.
Bad: For what it's worth, the price.
Comment: I agree 100% with Cnet's review. I asked a travelling friend to buy me a decent camera. He bought this camera at Brussel Airport. He was told by the salesman that there were two types of the same model. The one made in China cost Euro 139.00 and the Japanese Model cost Euro 339.00. This is USD450.00 where I live. He bought the "Japanese" model. For what it's really worth,I wish he had bought the Chinese one instead,
Zoom beyond 5X gives blurry photos. Edge colors are unrefined and blurry. I previously have used a lower priced Kodak 913C and also one of the lower priced Sony Dsc cameras. Still zoom is worthless. No zoom on video and the like which was not the problem with the other cameras I owned. I really wish I could get my money back.
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