We've got this theory that technology will destroy the world. It's not a particularly original thought and we've certainly watched Terminator a few too many times, it's true, but it seems inevitable to draw only one conclusion from the inexorable miniaturisation of gadgets that is the natural flow of technological evolution.
You see, in distant galaxies there are races far in advance of us who have produced washing machines the size of thimbles which harness anti-matter technology to compact clothing, suck it in, then spit it out whiter than white and re-enlarged.
And when these devices go wrong... that's where black holes come from. So this tiny digital camera from Canon is another nail in the coffin of our solar system, which is marching steadily towards oblivion via some disastrous, boffin-inspired implosion. Small is dangerous - you heard it here first.
Small is also incredibly cool when you wield a camera the same size as a credit card (albeit a 2cm-thick one) which weighs 100 grams and is truly pocket-sized. The real shocker, however, is that this fellow is a 4-Megapixel, all-singing, all-dancing affair, with a 5.7x digital zoom, a sharp LCD display and a host of other finger-tingling features. Oh yes.
The Ixus i is a small bundle of craftily-designed photographic joy. The on-screen menu is operated via a 4-way pad and two buttons, with a switch to toggle between photos, video film (you can shoot 180 seconds of video) and playback (reviewing your masterpieces). It's very easy to use and it bristles with features, some complex and some along handy, idiot-proofing lines.
This camera is an ideal compact point-and-shoot affair, as it has built-in auto-focus, auto-flash and red-eye compensation functions which are on by default. The auto-flash doesn't always get it right, but of course you can see that on the LCD display and re-take the picture, if necessary using the manual flash.
On the whole this is a great beginner's camera as a result, and the software is also heavy on user friendliness; installation is painless and downloading your images onto the PC is a breeze. There are also more complex facets to the software, such as a panoramic stitch program which lets you build up landscape shots from multiple photos.
A macro mode is incorporated into the Ixus i library, allowing for close-ups with considerable clarity, and there are also built-in photo filters such as "sepia" or "vivid" (which emphasises contrast and colour saturation). You can shoot in resolutions of up to 2,272 x 1,704 pixels and three levels of compression are available, so you can balance quality with the number of images you can fit onto the camera's 32MB memory card.
We were impressed with the quality of the pictures, too. Using the higher resolutions we obtained some very smart-looking snaps, although there was the occasional jagged edge to be seen. The zoom feature falls apart a little at the higher levels in terms of pixellation, so we stuck mainly to the medium territory for good results. Another minor moan is that the LCD is a little awkward to view in bright light, but that's to be expected with all cameras of this type.
