Fantastic camera - does everything you want it to do and more (Canon Powershot A640)

Member Name: Nicola-

Product:	Canon Powershot A640
Date:	27/05/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Low price, durable, high resolution, ergonomic, good in low light

Disadvantages: Quite heavy

The Canon Powershot A460 is an outstanding camera for the price. It has a 10 megapixel resolution (which you can change if you want to save card space); optical zoon; and a large 2.5" screen that you can twist into almost any position - perfect for taking pictures at strange angles and over people's heads at concerts. It has every setting a camera geek could possibly want, but also has an 'auto' setting which takes care of the complicated bits for you. It can auto-stitch landscape shots and has additional presets for night-time photography, portrait shots and other common formats.

Performance in low light is much better than other cameras at a comparable price, and the pictures are very sharp.

The shape of the camera is brilliant - it sits very comfortably in the hand and is hard to drop because of the chunky handle-like side. Despite that I have dropped it onto concrete a few times, and aside from a dent or two it's extremely well built and durable.

It'll do everything you need a camera to do including timed shots (and you can programme this to suit your own requirements rather than being restricted to presets).

The software that comes with it makes manipulating and editing pictures very easy; and you can also just load it up to both Windows and Linux PCs as an additional drive, making it very easy to get pictures off.

There are some optional extras which are worth considering if you want to be more adventurous, such as telephoto lenses and a waterproof kit for underwater photography.

Unlike some cameras in this price bracket it lasts for weeks on a single set of batteries.

For the price, this is an absolute bargain. I've had it for several years and would not consider replacing it.

Summary: Superb camera for the price, produces better results than more expensive SLRs

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Features:
Picture quality: