Canon Ixus 400 Review

Overall Rating

This camera is unbeatable on value, features, size and picture quality. I was so impressed with the quality - it beats the Nikon and Sony competitors in the same price range hands down. The surface is none mark white ceramic/metal that looks and feels cool!

The camera doesnt have any real bad points, but if i must. The small rubber cap to cover the input/ouput connectors is inappropriate looking and I can see that rough use will break the cap. However personally so far I have had no breakages. The thread for the tripod is too far too one side making it easy to lopside. Canon should supply a case with their camera.

This Canon Ixus 400 camera is awesome, especially at the new low prices just released. The picture quality and vividness of colours is truely amazing. The night shots using manual settings are excellent and this camera is equally well suited to both amateurs and professionals.
Its light and small architecture make this an extremely portable camera. The optical zoom is amazing and the lens used is crystal clear.
I would recommend this camera easily over the Casio Z4 - which is almost the same size but thinner and weighs less, the Casio picture quality is fairly poor and the 2" screen although .5 inch bigger is actually a lot less in resolution. The Casio doesnt have half the manual settings or selections of the Canon and the lens system used isnt as good.
The Sony P10 is the next best thing, it has a 5 mega pixel, higher resolution and a 5x optical zoom! But its slightly more expensive and Sony opted to use a cheaper quality lens in their system. Sonys p10 is also bulkier and heavier than the Canon and the memory works out to be much more expensive. So if you want to take a lot of high res pics but dont want to carry more than 1 card around (in the camera itself) the Canon is the solution and in my opinion easier to use single handed.
Canons menu selector system is also very easy to use and some of the extra features not talked about usually are actually really good, like the personalisation menu/themes and the ability to record to 1gb disks.
I spent a long time researching digital cameras and in the end opted for the Canon due to all the excellent reviews it has had.
Plus I didnt read the manual and managed to work out all the wonderful manual settings very easily. This camera is very intuitive and although there is a manual supplied I dont think most people need to bother with it.
I would recommend this camera to everyone, especially those who like to take snaps simultaneously without the hassle of carrying a bulky camera. Its an extremely well built camera and the parts used are very high quality.
The 4 megapixels is more than enough for most people these days and to be honest even at that resolution you can fit around a 1000 images on a 1gb card!
Out of all the reviews I have seen very few people have had anything to complain about with this camera. A+*