The Canon Powershot SD880 IS is an ultra-compact with a stabilized wide-angle lens. This used to be a rare thing but now many manufacturers offer this. The SD880 features a 4X optical zoom from 28 to 112mm in 35mm equivalent terms.

Nicely saturated colors, Good control over image noise up to ISO 400, Good corner-to-corner lens sharpness, Relatively low distortion, Virtually no chromatic aberrations visible, Superb LCD visibility, Good feature set among ultra-compact cameras

Limited dynamic range, Destructive noise at ISO 800, even more at 1600, Noticeable vignetting at widest angle, Redeye problems, Poor flash coverage near wide-angle, Difficult to hold securely, Buttons and dials prone to accidental change

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A stabilized 18X wide-angle optical zoom and full manual controls in a relatively compact body.

The Canon Powershot SD790 IS finds itself among a too crowded market of ultra-compact digital cameras which produce better images than this one. It seems like in its quest for producing a tiny low-cost digital camera, Canon compromised too much on image q...

Nicely saturated colors, Accurate exposure, Good white-balance, Good overall image sharpness, Quick focus in good light, Fast and responsive, Quick flash recycling, Excellent LCD visibility, Decent battery life for a recent ultra-compact

High loss of details in long exposures, Quite noisy from ISO 800, Sacry vignetting visible, Mild barrel distortion at wide-angle, Some corner softness, Chromatic aberrations, Slow but accurate focus in low light, Difficult to hold securely, Buttons too fl...

The Canon Powershot SD950 IS may be a bit larger than most ultra-compact but it makes up for it in image quality and performance. The 12 megapixels sensor here does show some image noise, even at ISO 200, but details are still well-kept until ISO 400 whic...

Good preservation of image details, Nice image colors, Great white-balance, even on auto, Good image sharpness, Fast and responsive, Durable build quality

Images too contrasty and low dynamic range, Some corner softness, Above average chromatic aberrations, Noticeable distortion, Short battery life, Useless ISO 1600

Our Digital SLR camera buying guide has been updated with information about live-view and movie-recording.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 performs quite well for having such an extreme optical zoom. While it is normal that ultra-zooms compromise one image quality, this one compromise very little to pack an 18X zoom along an 8 megapixels sensor. The major drawbac...

Extreme wide-angle 18X optical zoom, Good color accuracy, Low optical distortion, Consistent sharpness from corner to corner, Effective stabilization

Image details destroyed from ISO 400 onwards, Useless at high ISO, Poor dynamic range, Softness near telephoto end of zoom, Low resolution EVF

This 11 megapixels camera features a 14.3X mechanical optical zoom lens with image stabilization, expanded dynamic range and film simulation.

This camera is so similar to its sister models that we reviewed that the conclusion is no different. The main options are getting a higher zoom with the or getting one megapixel less with the

Nicely saturated colors, Good exposure accuracy, Good image sharpness and details at low ISO, Great image stabilization, Good ergonomics, Excellent battery life

White system balance not entirely accurate, Softness due long-shutter noise reduction, Useless ISO 800 and 1600 sensitivities, Poor tripod mount placement, LCD resolution low, Slow zoom

The Canon Powershot SD1100 IS represents its series with good all-around performance without standing out in any way. It produces nice images with consumer-oriented color, bright print-ready exposure and is quite fast and responsive. There is nothing seri...

Nicely saturated colors, Accurate but bright exposure system, Fast and responsive, Good focusing speed, Great LCD visibility, Easy to use interface

Poor white-balance under artificial lighting, Above average image noise above ISO 200, Chromatic aberrations, Corner softness, Weak flash, Poor battery life