The most important things for a camera to have now:
- Megapixels
- Easy to use system with multiple features
- Optical zoom
- Good battery life

First, 12.1MPix is enough for anyone who isn't professional. Many computers screens they are viewed on won't notice any difference in quality from above 10Mpix. It is the same with printed photographs, 10MPix is more than enough for anything up to 10x12inches, and above that you can still get away with it, depending on how much of a perfectionist you see yourself to be! With 12.1MPix on this camera, you will always have high quality images.

Optical zoom is 4.4x, this is not the best on the market and it is possible to find slightly more for a lower price. However, it does zoom in further than you might imagine for 4.4x, and and the quality stays immeccable. Combined with the high MPix rate, you will have a beautiful picture of anything that isn't miles away. If you're at a concert halfway back and you want a picture of a band members face, it's never going to be perfect, but this will get you closer than most!

The Canon on camera system is easy to navigate, and it also has many options. You can play about with the contrast and colour balance, which is especially using for photographs of scenery, and it also works beautifully for a sunset. It also has other more fun added extras, along with all the traditional ones including macro - works amazingly well with flowers, you would think you were usually a much more professional camera - and night mode, distance modes, and face modes.

The battery life is outstanding, for me it lasted over a week week when I was taking around 100 photo's a day. You could take this camera on holiday and you wouldn't have to worry about it running out of battery.

The memory card is sufficient, but it is easy and now cheap to by various sizes and as this camera supports many memory types it is more than easy to find a deal! More likely than not, you'll be able to use cards you already own.