Review Summary

Reader Score: 7.33 (out of 10)

The Canon Powershot A610 is the successor to the popular A95, which was itself the successor to the A80. The "A" in these names refers to the fact that they use AA batteries rather than proprietary Li-ion cells such as are found in many other Canon digicams. This means batteries are always easy to find (though you'll probably want to buy a set of rechargeable NiMH cells). The A610 now uses an SD memory card rather than the CF card used by the A80 and A95. Most small digicams seem to be making this switch. The other major changes from the A95 are that the lens is now a 4x zoom (35-140) rather than a 3x (38-114), the LCD has increased from 1.8" to 2" and operation has been speededup by using a Digic II chip (the A95 has the original Digic chip)

Digicams have come a long way. The Powershot A610 has a better lens than the A95 it replaced and the price hasn't gone up (in fact in real terms is probably cheaper!). There's little that's missing that most amateur photographers could want in a digicam. It has manual, aperture priority, shutter priority and program modes, along with a host of "scene" modes for the inexperienced photographer. 5MP is enough to make good quality 8x10 prints, which is probably as large as most users will want and if you push it you might even squeeze an 11x14 out of it. If you want more pixels, the Canon Powershot A620 is essentially an identical camera, but with a 7.1 MP sensor. The A610 is powered by easily obtainable AA batteries and power drain seems low. I can't say how low, but I've been playing with it for a week and the original set of AA cells is still fine.

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