Review Canon Ixus 210 Canon’s first touchscreen compact, the Digital Ixus 200 IS was a disappointing offering, not helped by Canon providing both touchscreen operation and standard button control.

The Ixus 210, however, is a different animal, offering just a three-way slider – for auto, program AE and movie modes – a power button and a combined shutter/zoom rocker. It takes all types of SD cards (including SDXC), plus MMC and Eye-Fi cards.

The screen is one of the best I’ve seen and is very clear, even when bright sunlight is shining directly onto it. The menu system is easy to navigate and the touchscreen highly responsive. You can also use lots of gestures to navigate the camera's functions.

Sample Shots

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Using gestures enables three ways of scrolling through images – running your thumb over an image (although this sometimes activates the zoom mode if your touch isn’t right), tapping the black bands at the sides of the image or tapping the side of the camera body (sounds like a gimmick, but actually works well).

Finger-controlled spot focusing was fast and accurate too. Picture quality was pretty good, although noise increases a fair bit once you go above ISO 200.

Verdict

Canon has really embraced touchscreen technology this time and it shows. The Ixus 210 is a very easy camera to operate and is ideal for the point-and-shoot enthusiast who is glad to see the back of the usual cluster of navigation buttons. ®

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