Canon IXUS 700 / PowerShot SD500 / IXY 600 Expert Reviews

alaTest has collected and analyzed 1086 reviews from magazines and websites. Reviewers really like the design. The interface also impresses, but many are less positive about the contrast.

Design, Interface, Resolution, Performance

Contrast, Price, Video, Viewfinder

Reviewers rate this product 84/100. We analyzed these ratings, the product age and more factors. Compared to other Digital Compact Cameras, the Canon IXUS 700 / PowerShot SD500 / IXY 600 is awarded an overall alaScore™ of 88/100 = Very Godd quality.

When Canon set out to make an ultra compact, ultra high resolution camera, it wasn't as simple as dropping a new CCD into an existing body. The reason for that is due to the size of the CCD sensor itself: on the SD200, SD300, and the new SD400, the ...

Excellent photo quality (though see issues below) ; Compact and very stylish metal body ; Blazing performance ; First rate movie and continuous shooting modes ; Powerful flash for a compact camera ; Unique My Colors feature ; LCD visible in low light ...

Some corner softness and purple fringing ; Redeye is a problem ; Cheap plastic door over memory card / battery compartment ; While an improvement over the other SD series cameras, battery life could be better ; Can't swap memory cards while camera is ...

Canon gives you a 32MB Secure Digital (SD) memory card along with the SD500, which sounds nice at first until you see how many photos that can hold. Since you probably don't know, I'll tell you: it holds nine at the highest quality setting. So you ...

Canon wins very high marks with this tiny camera.

Incredibly small ; wonderful picture quality

Relatively short-lived proprietary battery ; expensive

Frame your shots with ease and share them on the spot.

The $500 Canon PowerShot SD500 Digital Elph is so small it fits easily in just about any pocket, leaving you no excuse for not having a camera handy when those once-in-a-lifetime baby/puppy/soccer shots happen. The resulting photos weren't our taste ...

Small size Rugged body

Image quality isn't tops

The SD500's weakness is its image quality. The photos looked good overall, but in our taste tests they didn't score as well as some other compact point-and-shoots in the same price range. For example, the Fujifilm F10 significantly outscored the SD500 ...

The 7.1-megapixel digital camera is a smooth operator, but its dearth of manual features and high price make it an expensive choice.

Produces excellent color in images ; bright LCD ; 2-shots-per-second continuous shooting mode ; fun My Colors mode ; good video quality ; ability to shoot movies at 60 frames per second

No live histogram ; lack of manual controls ; no TIFF or RAW ; pricey

At six ounces (without batteries), and about the size of a deck of cards, the SD500 is a true pocket camera. The 2-inch LCD is bright and easy to see, even in afternoon sunlight, and it brightens automatically when shooting in low-light conditions. ...

One of the digital imaging revolution's most fascinating high-tech product developments was the ultra compact digital camera.

Excellent resolution, Very compact and pocketable, Beautifully built and all-metal construction, Excellent color and exposure, Manual (custom) white balance, Fast focus and very responsive performance overall, Good flash performance at short distances ...

Low contrast fine detail (such as foliage or hair) looks soft, AiAF focus unreliable - turn it off, Screen resolution not high enough for a 2.0-inch LCD, Some purple fringing, Slight corner softness at wide angle, Battery life when using LCD not ...

It's not without reason that the IXUS/Elph range has proved so popular; the combination of size, design and materials, performance and decent image quality is a compelling one.