*This camera looks great. The curvy design makes it something you won't be embarrassed to carry around with you all the time, and it's the perfect size to keep in your admittedly relatively large pocket, but I'm sure it would fit just fine in most handbags.
The layout
*The Ixus 110 has a relatively minimalist layout which I like very much, but whether such a layout will suit you will definitely be down to personal taste. On the front you've got the flash, lense and autofocus LED, so nothing new there. On the top of the camera there's the shutter relase, shooting mode slider where you select the gallery, photo or video mode, and the on off button. The back of the camera on the other hand sports a much less traditional design, containing the high quality LCD screen and the scroll wheel. Whilst this set up looks great, I found the scroll wheel quite difficult to use and prefer a more traditional layout. Photo review and menu buttons sit above and below the scroll wheel respectively, and that's it.
The features
*The 12 megapixel sensor produces crisp shots in most situations, but suffers slightly in low light conditions or cloudy landscapes. Most compacts however suffer from this to some extent. The 18 possible scene modes are also very useful. When you want to blur the background of a portrait shot or make fireworks that little bit more vivid the various scene modes prove invaluable. I also found selecting the appropriate scene when the camera struggled to take a particular photo, for example in low light and certain landscapes, helped improve the shot dramatically.
*The anti blur feature is one of the biggest let downs with the Ixus 110. Increasing the ISO to decrease the shutter speed is, in my opinion, the least effect way of preventing motion blur. Images taken where this feature has been activated were considerably 'noisier' than images taken without, which were otherwise crisp and clear.
*The HD shooting mode was brilliant. The HDMI port built in makes it easy to hook up to your HDTV or PC. Everything was easy to use here and video quality was very impressive.
*The widescreen lense at 28mm is by no means the widest lense available on a compact, but is considerably better than most compact lenses and produces great pictures in most situations.
*The Ixus 110's rechargeable battery lasted about 150 shots with heavy zooming, making Canon's statement of 200 reasonable.
The bad points
* Image quality really does suffer in cloudy weather and low light, the flash is also not as strong as on some compact cameras.
Conclusion
* The Ixus 110 is a good compact camera overall, suffering in the places most compact cameras suffer. With its HD recording capabilities however the Ixus 110 gains something still relatively unique and thus sits somewhere above the mediocre. The price and whether or not you like the minimalist design on the back are likely to be the main deal breakers here.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
A well written review, but I would want to know more before parting with £200. If you add anymore to this review, let me know in my guest book and I will happily rerate it for you :)
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