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3.2 seems to be the words for this unit. 3.2x optical zoom and 3.2mega pixel the latter stated to be enough to produce a decent A4 print.

Having recently reviewed a number of quite complex offerings it is nice to look at something that is - in it's setup configuration - point and shoot. The top has two buttons on/off and the shutter.

The right side has camera strap anchor, a bung to cover PC connector and a door that covers access to the supplied 16MB MMC card and the two AA batteries. The bottom has a screw for attaching to a tripod, should you have one. The rear has a small 3x2.5cm TFT four buttons, a four position circular unit that is well illustrated and a five position wheel that is also illustrated so that any novice would immediately be aware of what does what.

See also: Digital Cameras

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Having said it is a novices unit one position on the wheel allows manual settings and while these may take longer to set than on some more complex units items such as white balance can be changed for the more knowledgeable. I found a total of 14 different shooting modes.

Canon always provide excellent software for use on a PC and this unit is no exception. However should you know that little more and you have a card reader you can just remove the MMC card and transfer images in that way. This unit also supports PictBridge direct to printer printing.

My recent review of the Canon Selphy 15x10 photo printer was partly done using images from this camera and all the 15x10cm images I printed were excellent and while I did experiment with the manual controls most images were taken using the default settings.

This unit does have a viewfinder and those coming from film will probably start by using it, however it's placement very near the top and left side mean it is not ideal for anyone sighting with their left eye as the nose will tend to be stuck hard against the TFT.

My thoughts on people only supplying a 16MB card are well known but with the image size varying from around 600-1200MB dependant on content you can expect around a dozen images. With cards so cheap buy yourself a 128MB card and snap away all day. A spare set of batteries is always a wise thing to have but I was pleasantly surprised how long the supplied pair of AA batteries lasted. Not using the TFT display all the time helps but as the display is smaller than a lot of other current units this also helps with battery life.

Certainly the images taken with this 3.2megapixel unit were less prone to camera shake than the more normal 5megapixel offerings marketed today. There is no case supplied as standard just a bubblewrap bag. However when I did my normal Internet searches the two cheapest vendors I found both provided a case in their £88 asking price.

http://www.cameras2u.com/products/details.cfm?PRODUCT=0327B025AA