The Canon Ixus 230 HS comes in black, silver, purple, brown or red. It's a very slim compact camera given the wealth of mechanics inside.
The follow-up model to the popular Canon Ixus 220 HS of last year, The Canon Ixus 230 HS is a 12.1Mp compact camera with a 28mm wideangle lens and an 8x optical zoom. Compared with the zoom range of some of the compact cameras we've recently tried out, the Canon's is fairly modest. However, the HS of this camera's name refers to its combination of high speed and high sensitivity – something that just wouldn't work well over a 15x zoom. The 22mm-thick body would be hard pushed to accommodate more lens, in any case.
See also: Group test: what's the best camera?
Controls are geared towards point and shoot photography, with a simple level dial to adjust the zoom and an onscreen indicator if your hands are shaking. Video can be taken at 720p and has its own red record button. A switch to change from auto to menu options resides on the right-hand side of the Canon Ixus 230 HS's camera body. Flash and macro options can be adjusted via a navipad on the rear. Other settings are changed via the onboard menus.
As with other HS cameras (Canon offers Ixus and PowerShot models with this feature), the Canon Ixus 230 HS is capable of capturing blur-free photos under challenging low-light conditions, so you can take party shots without blinding everyone with the flash. Canon cites 210 shots before the battery needs to be recharged. Expect around 40 minutes of video footage to deplete the battery.













Comments
Penfold said: I bought this and the Nikon S9100 after a few days with each I thought the Nikon was better its clos BUT this Canon was smaller I took the Nikon back but felt I was settling for second best due to the smaller size of the Canon Bill