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Overall I was very impressed with the Canon G7. It does a lot of things right within the context of its price, size and its likely intended constituency. Unfortunately a consequence of being a JPG-only camera is that too many technical decisions need to be made prior to shooting. Things like color balance, saturation, sharpening, etc all get baked into the file, and the ability to recover burned-out highlights (which raw files provide) is lost when all you have is a JPG. A good example of this is seen in Fig. 3 which I am reproducing again below."

Those SLR owners looking for a second or third shooter should give both the Canon G7 and the A640 a close look. In addition to IS, the G7 has the advantage of a long-lasting Lithium-ion battery, like you're used to with your SLR. But I have to warn you that you might be disappointed with the speed of the Canon G7 relative to your digital SLR. Once you're tuned to one type of shutter, it's very difficult to return to a slower mechanism, but not bad if you're already accustomed."

The ISO80 picture is very clean, with smooth tones and excellent sharpness. There's some very faint signs of noise in the ISO100 picture, but nothing of real concern. It starts to appear more in the shadow areas of ISO 200 pictures but is only quite noticeable in ISO 400 mode. ISO 800 is still sharp while being quite noisy, but when it gets to ISO 1600, the noise level increases significantly and the colors shifts as well."

At $529 street, the G7 is pricier than the priciest Elph, the $425 SD900 and slightly cheaper than the EOS Rebel XT with the 18-55mm kit lens. ($575.) As DSLRs have come down in price, and compact point-and-shoots have become more feature-rich, the "advanced" compact digicam category has gotten squeezed from both sides.

s this the must-have pocket-cam for the pros? Probably not. There are just too many cut corners and sacrifices that many hardcore shooters may not be willing to take. The wide angle lens distortion is high for a camera of this class, the noise numbers at higher ISOs rate from bad to dismal, and the lack of RAW support is sure to disappoint many EOS users."

In this case, however, it seems to come at a cost. The G7 no longer offers the hinged monitor of the G6, the camera it supplants, neither does it have a generous grip, nor the SLR-like display screen on the right of the flash shoe. Design-wise, the G7 is retro, abandoning the course of the G6, which had evolved towards being a bridge camera, and returning instead to the roots of the G-series: the compact camera.

The G7 combines features that are well suited to advanced users - advanced modes and a fully manual mode - with some, such as multiple scene modes, face detection and automatic categorization of images, that are more the domain of point and shoot cameras. In other words, the G7 is yet another alternative for those that are looking to maximize the resolution and yet have the flexibility of a camera that can be both manual and automatic."

While the PowerShot remains a fairly unique proposition with its 6x stabilized zoom in a relatively pocketable body, we believe there's three other 10 Megapixel models which potential G7 owners should also be considering..."

I was really surprised by the mixed image quality, though. There were cases when my photos looked better than expected, predominantly thanks to the image stabilization. But there were also cases where artifacts I didn't expect popped up. The automatic white balance and various metering modes worked reasonably well, but I missed being able to tweak them during raw processing...."

Ultimately then, the G7 is a camera that suffers in comparison with its predecessors. It also suffers from being neither fish nor fowl; too big, expensive and complex for the 'average' compact user; possibly (though by no means certainly) too limited for the high end / enthusiast user. And yet - taken on its own merits - it is without doubt one of the best, and most comprehensively-featured compact cameras we've ever seen, and one that (in the right hands) is capable of great results."

When compared to other compact digital cameras, the Canon PowerShot G7 looks like a strong option. It has serious resolution at 10 megapixels, a nice 6x optical zoom lens with optical image stabilization, and its new Digic III processor allows more ISO sensitivity and trendy face recognition technology. ..."

I wasn't overwhelmed by the G7's performance, although I did find its burst speed in standard mode to be excellent, letting you fire consistently for dozens of shots without stalling. The camera's boot-up time of 2.6 seconds is decent, but the 3.3-second recycle time was just okay..."

The Canon Powershot G7 is the kind of camera that not only makes you feel like a better photographer, but helps you become one too, mixing both comprehensive and happily reliable hand holding features with a plethora of real photographic controls that, along with build quality, at times exceeds that offered by many - if not most - budget DSLRs...."

While Canon has singled out the G7 as its most complete compact to date, it misses out for some by not including top quality RAW capture- which gives photographers more hands-on control over exposure and colors - alongside regular JPEG files. But, as the images it does deliver are well saturated with colour and razor sharp, we didn't miss that more sophisticated feature..."

While the G7 is unquestionably a superb camera, head and shoulders above anything else at the same size or price, the slower lens, smaller profile and lack of RAW mode will deter many potential buyers from trading in their G6. Instead of the best semi-pro camera on the market, Canon has produced a well specified general purpose camera that will appeal to the more ambitious casual user, rather than as an SLR-alternative for the serious hobbyist."