By Joshua Goldman
26/05/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,44567293p,00.htm

The Canon Digital Ixus 110 IS is a followup to the very popular Ixus 870 IS featuring the same 28mm wide-angle lens with a 4x optical zoom. But this model jumps from 10 to 12 megapixels, adds 720p HD video recording and utilizes the improved Canon's Digic 4 image processor. It also features an HDMI output so you can quickly hook the camera up to an HDTV for playing back photos and videos. That, unfortunately, is one of the few good things about the design, with the main issue being its widescreen LCD. On the upside--and probably most importantly--it takes very good photos with great color and exposure. The HD video quality is good, too.

Design And Features

Typical of the Ixus series, the 110 IS is small, reasonably good-looking, and available in different colors--silver, gold, blue, and pink. Canon employed a 2.8-inch widescreen LCD, which is weird unless you plan on taking photos for viewing on a widescreen computer monitor, TV, or digital photo frame. If you are, it would appear you're overpaying for the 12-megapixel resolution of this camera since shooting in widescreen format drops the resolution to 4,000 x 2,248 pixels from 4,000 x 3,000 pixels. Should you snap pictures at the 110 IS' top resolution of 12 megapixels, you'll be using only 2.3 inches of screen. Suddenly that 2.8-inch widescreen LCD just got a lot less attractive.

If the back of the shooter looks peculiar, it's because Canon axed two buttons--Print/Share and Display--and has also eliminated a lot of labeling. This is both good and bad. The Print/Share is usually user programmable, so even if you don't use it for its intended purpose you can still make use of the button. The Display key is gone, and has been moved to the unlabeled rotating disc/directional pad. You have to rotate or press the disc for a graphic to appear onscreen with labels for what for the navigation pad does, such as timer, display information, focusing range and flash.

Specification/Model	Ixus 110 IS	Ixus 870 IS
Sensor resolution	12 megapixels	10 megapixels
Dimension/Weight	97.9 x 54.1 x 22.1mm/145g	93.8 x 56.8 x 23.6mm/155g
LCD size	2.8-inch	3-inch
Lens/Focal length	4x optical zoom/28mm to 112mm	4x optical zoom/28mm to 112mm
Max. video resolution	1,280 x 720 pixels	640 x 480 pixels
Image stabilizer	Optical	Optical
Links		Click for full review

Making room for the Display function on the navigation pad was done by relegating the exposure compensation feature to the Function menu. It may look like a more straightforward design, but you're sacrificing features for it. Again, this can be both good and bad depending on your needs and expectations.

The 110 IS is limited to three shooting modes, none of which allows you to tweak shutter speed or aperture (remember, this is pretty much a simple point-and-shoot). A small switch on top toggles between Canon's Smart Auto mode, a Program/Scene mode option and Movie mode. The Smart Auto picks from 18 scenes, so the bases are well covered. In Program you can control things such as ISO, white balance, light metering, and autofocus type, or you can switch to a handful of scene options like Portrait and Indoors and Specialty Scene selections including Aquarium, Under Water (for use with an optional enclosure), and ISO 3200, which resulted in photos that weren't usable for much more than posting them online.

Performance And Image Quality

If you're the type to get impatient waiting between shots, the 110 IS might disappoint you with its 2.6-second shot-to-shot time. Turning on the flash drags that out to nearly 4 seconds. Also, there's no burst mode on this model, only continuous unlimited shooting capable of just less than one frame per second. Startup time is decent, however, at 1.4 seconds. Shutter lag measured 0.4 second in well-lit conditions and 0.6 in dim light. In most cases, photo quality from the Canon camera was very good, thanks to remarkable color, exposure and white balance. As with most point-and-shoots, photos turned out best at ISO sensitivities below ISO 200. At ISO 400, fine details started to degrade and shots turned less sharp. The majority of our testing was conducted in the Smart Auto mode which was really reliable at picking the correct scenes and settings.

Purple fringing is something we've learned to expect from point-and-shoot cameras, but it's generally at the sides of images where lens distortion is more profound. The 110 IS has above-average amounts of fringing and this can be found throughout the frame. That was what dragged the photo quality for this camera down from excellent to very good. The Ixus camera also struggled occasionally with complex scenes resulting in shots that looked a bit overprocessed.

The Movie mode is capable of recording at HD quality (1,280 x 720 pixels) and the results are very good. For quick connection to an HDTV, there's a mini-HDMI output behind a small door on the right side of the body. Unfortunately, the 4x optical zoom doesn't function while recording.

Conclusion

Had Canon decided to upgrade the 870 IS just by raising the resolution to 12 megapixels and adding HD movie capture, this review probably would've been stamped with an Editors' Choice award. Instead, the company shrank the screen, took away some features, made a seemingly unnecessary control change, and then decided to bump the price up by US$30. The Canon Digital Ixus 110 IS is a solid option, but if you want more control and a smaller price tag, get the 870 IS instead.