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Canon PowerShot G10

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One of the notable upgrades for the G10 would be in the optics. For the first time in a G-series shooter, Canon has incorporated a 28mm wide-angle lens coupled with 5x optical zoom. While this may be nothing to shout about, it shows that the company is listening to consumers' needs. However, Panasonic is already ahead in this race with the LX3's 24mm ultra-wide-angle lens. Those in the know will also notice that the telephoto range of the G10 has been compromised down to 140mm from the G9's 210mm.

Apart from the optics, the rest of the upgrades are pretty minor. The sensor's resolution has been increased from 12.1 to 14.7 megapixels. LCD-wise, the G10's display remains at 3 inches, but can now show 460k dots instead of the 230k resolution found on the G9.

Other features that the G10 shares with its predecessor are an optical image stabilizer, face detection and user-adjustable focusing points. The array of shooting modes and customizable settings are similar to what you can get on both the G9 and the LX3.

If you're a Canon dSLR user, you should be familiar with Picture Style which is an option to apply different settings such as color tone, saturation, sharpness and contrast to your image in-camera (when supported). There is also the Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software that comes with the snapper. The G10's RAW files can be opened in DPP, and for the first time in a Canon compact shooter, you can apply customized Picture Style settings during post-processing.

All of Canon's latest cameras boast the new DIGIC 4 image-processing engine, and this replaces the aged DIGIC III. The company told CNET Asia the new chip has faster autofocus operation, reproduces even more stunning colors, extended dynamic range and better image quality. We find out how the new engine performs later in this review.

The supplied rechargeable lithium-ion battery's capacity had been increased as well, from the G9's 720mAH to the new 1,050mAH. The battery could have been beefed-up to back up the more power-intensive image processor, or to handle the larger image files generated when taking pictures.

There is no internal memory in the G10, and storage support is only for SD/SDHC cards. We advise using an SDHC card because the transfer rate is faster and allows you to capture more shots before the buffer fills up.



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