Canon Digital IXUS 970 IS

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By Lori Grunin, CNET.com
May 16, 2008

Whether human or camera, it's always hard following in the footsteps of a popular sibling, and the near-universally well-liked Canon IXUS 950 IS is a harder act to follow than most. Rather than simply bump up the resolution and zoom range for the IXUS 970 IS--it's now 10 megapixels up from 8, and 5x zoom, up from 4x--Canon chose to redesign the camera as well. The result is an almost completely different--and ultimately not as satisfying--compact point-and-shoot.

Editors' note:

This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia.

Design

With its thick 95.4 x 57.3 x 27.4mm body, the 155g camera can somewhat slide comfortably into a loose pants pocket. The IXUS 970 IS sports a much curvier design than its predecessor, including a gently sloping front where you grip the camera.

Though the curved side is quite attractive to look at from the front, it results in a narrower gripping area.
(click for larger image)

In addition to altering the overall design, Canon opted to replace its more traditional four-way navigation switch with a four-way navigation dial plus wheel. The wheel scrolls through some of the modes that you used to pull up via the function (Func) button, such as Stitch Assist, Color Swap, Color Accent, and Digital Macro, as well as the scene modes. The Func button sits in the middle and calls up exposure compensation, white balance, My Colors, metering, compression quality, and image size. Within this menu--and within the menu system in general--you can use either the navigation dial or scroll wheel. A mode switch, which doubles as a thumb rest, toggles among automatic, manual, program exposure (scene), and movie capture modes.

We are big fans of scroll wheels, but we find the free-flying wheel of the IXUS 970 IS too difficult to control. There's no physical feedback so you can't feel you've scrolled to the next option, and we frequently found ourselves either zipping past our choice or frustrated because it didn't seem to be changing. If you pause to figure out which option it's going to stop at--Canon should have called it the roulette wheel--the options time out and disappear. Furthermore, when operating the menu, display, and review buttons, our thumb tends to drag the wheel with it. Finally, though the mode switch works fine for its function, it's neither big enough nor shaped comfortably enough to rest your thumb. We were tempted to give the camera a lower rating for design, but we suspect other users won't find it quite as annoying to use as we do.

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