Canon - Digital IXUS 200 IS review
stylish digital compact with touch-screen
Review date: 04 December, 2009. Review by: Martyn Clayden
To some degree the IXUS 200 IS is a triumph of style over practicality. It comes in four chic shades of two-tone silver, gold, blue and purple and is encased in smooth metal with plenty of lush curves, making it the digital camera equivalent of a Galaxy bar. It's extremely lightweight (just 130g), slips easily into a bag or pocket and the working surfaces are deliberately uncluttered.
However, the designers obviously felt triangles were ‘in' this year, as the filming mode, battery holder and power button boast this shape and the latter is now a recessed, needle-shaped sliver that is annoyingly awkward to operate. Also a leaf motif has taken over the playback and menu buttons (no issue there) but the same creative urge has reshaped the covers of the AV Out and HDMI ports on the side, making them ridiculously fiddly to undo and re-fit.
Where Canon gets it resoundingly right, on the other hand, is in the choice of a 3-inch widescreen LCD which is the first in this range to use touch-screen technology. Most usefully, when you want to focus on a specific person or object, you merely have to tap the screen and the AF locks onto that target until you take the shot.
Touching specific icons on the screen will change shooting mode, flash settings and exposure and if you tilt the camera on end (i.e. in portrait position) you can take the photo by tapping the LCD. Playback through your snaps is equally simple, using the classic iPhone technique of dragging your finger across the surface.
Other clever little features thrown into the mix are the Active Display which lets you cycle through your recorded images by flicking the camera (a bit hit-and-miss in our experience) and the very welcome Hints & Tips UI which gives you a brief text description of most of the camera's functions during shooting, playback and scrolling through the menus.
This will particularly appeal to newcomers to digital photography and it's noteworthy that Canon has provided the usual D-pad control dial to link up with the menu and playback buttons to perform all the functions that the touch-screen does. Whether you see that as a way of helping those who are unsure about using touch-screens, or a lack of confidence in going for broke with the new technology will depend on your point of view.
As the IXUS 200 IS has a 12.1-megapixel CCD, you have the option of intensely detailed photos to enlarge and it comes with an ultra-wide 24mm lens and slightly larger than standard 5x optical zoom. As is more and more the norm, Scene Detection is present to analyse your scene and choose one of 22 options, there are no fewer than 20 shooting modes to suit all conditions (except underwater!) and there's a generous sweep of photo effects. 720p HD movies can be captured at 30fps and played directly to your TV via the HDMI port, although only the 4x digital zoom will operate when you're recording.
Certainly you'll be pleased with the quality of the colour saturation and sharpness in the final images, although sometimes it takes a few efforts to focus on closer objects. More of a concern, perhaps, is whether the price tag might be too steep for those who essentially just want a point ‘n' click camera: the more experienced photographer might prefer to examine DSLR alternatives.
Verdict
The IXUS 200 IS is beautiful and chic to look at but sometimes sacrifices practical concerns for that stylishness. The new touch-screen technology, though, performs impressively and you can also record 720p HD movies.
Company: Canon
Contact: 01737 220000
