Rich Trenholm

Friday 14 September 2007, 10:01am

Thanks for the memory. No really, thanks

This week I've been reviewing the stylish but lightweight (in every sense of the word) Canon IXUS 75. Among the many features it doesn't have is internal memory. And, to be honest, I'm glad. I'm tired of lacklustre internal memory pointlessly shoehorned into cameras. Any less than 1GB is, frankly, a slap in the face.

The nadir has to be the otherwise excellent Casio EX-Z1200. Being the first compact to pack 12 megapixels into an image, the onboard memory held, wait for it, one photograph. Now that's just taking the Casio.

And why? I reckon designers are under pressure from the marketing types who want to place a tick next to 'internal memory' in the specs chart, knowing full well that Wayne and Waynetta Dixon's won't have a clue that 15MB is the memory equivalent of a kick in the nuts. Now I'm no engineer meself, so I don't know how much physical space 15MB of memory takes up, but if it was omitted I'm sure there'd be room to add some extra faces to face recognition. Or something.

So I applaud Canon's decision to jettison internal memory. Or rather I would if they hadn't perpetuated the pretence by bundling a 32MB SD card with the IXUS 75. No, I didn't know you could get 32MB cards either: the memory equivalent of a Chinese burn. That beauty'll hold a grand total of twenty seconds of video. Or nine photos. Thanks.

I would be less insulted if they just hadn't bothered, and then maybe they could have chiselled a few pence off the price, or at least dispensed with a features listing trumpeting a free memory card. Which is the equivalent of grabbing your Chinese burn-sore arm and rubbing it with sandpaper.

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