I just got our new Canon SD870 IS point-and-shoot. I really only looked at this camera in first place because of all you Canon-koolaid-drinking hippies but ultimately it turned out to be a damned good competitor to the Sony (and other) offerings.
You may be wondering why I went with the year-old 870 instead of its successor, the 880. Two big reasons:
- I got a killer deal on the 870
- All of the reviews I've read highlight how noisy the sensor on the 880 is. The 870 isn't exactly the cleanest sensor out there, but it really seems like Canon pushed it with the 10MP sensor in the 880—8MP is more than enough, thanks.
The only two real alternatives were the DSC-T77 (spendy) and the incredibly tiny Casio EX-S10, which is absolutely worth checking out if you don't need image stabilization and can live with a marginally wonky power button. It really is an incredibly tiny camera (thinner than my Optio, and only slightly wider). The other inexpensive point-and-shoots all lacked IS or had beefy housings and clunky controls.
Oh, and when it comes to power-on times, the 870/880 are about the fastest I was able to find. The 870 clocks in at 0.9 seconds from power-to-record, which is unusually good performance.
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