I bought this camera because I needed to replace an aging Nikon. Also, my dad had bought one of Canon SD700 series (I don’t remember the exact model), and I was impressed by the quality of pictures that one took. Which led to my decision in buying this.
First off, the design was nice. I like the metal body, it has a nice weight to it and feels comfortable in your hand. The buttons are very intuitive, but a bit on the small size (I have fat fingers). I also like the compact battery charger.
As for picture quality, it wasn’t half bad. I was first worried about the potential for noise with such a high mega pixel, but I haven’t experienced it. What I was impressed with the most is the zoom, especially the digital zoom. In my past experiences, digital zooms are worthless because they simply enlarge the pictures, making them pixelated. However, with this Canon, I was blown away. I think the new processor compensates for this, and the digital zooms comes out looking good. I was able to capture very small prints from across the room!
The flash (like previous Canons) are very powerful. I took some pictures in total darkness and they look as if I had some other external light source.
A couple of other things…the 32MB SD card is a joke, but shouldn’t prevent you from trying out this camera. Zooming in and out made some noise, not really loud, but can be annoying. Also, in the continuous shoot mode, you can hear the camera making adjustments. A camera case would have been nice. Overall, I am happy with it.