Canon PowerShot A460 review

Digital camera manufacturers have always loved megapixel ratings, which often become the headline figure on the packaging, enticing you to opt for the highest you can afford.

But unless you want to print your photos larger than A4, or crop into small areas, the five megapixels offered by cameras like the new PowerShot A460 should be enough.

For only £92, you get a camera that's easy to use and will take great photos without requiring you to fiddle about with advanced settings. What the A460 really excels at is capturing the moment. Many other cameras at this price cut corners on processing power, which means it can be a frustratingly long time before you're ready to take a photo. But press the power button on the PowerShot and it's ready to shoot in only 2.4 seconds. There's even a useful continuous mode that will keep shooting 1.2 photos per second until you take your finger off the shutter button. Stuck in a dimly lit room? No problem for the A460 - a focus-assist lamp allows it to lock on to subjects quickly in low light. Want to include yourself in the photo? Easy: there's a custom self-timer which allows you to set the time delay (up to 30 seconds) and how many shots are taken (up to 10).

There are a couple of tell-tale signs of the PowerShot's low price, though. It's wider and deeper than most equivalent cameras; at 41mm thick, it's difficult to pop in a pocket. It also has a relatively small 2-inch TFT screen.

On the scene

Fortunately, this is nice and bright and has a high enough resolution to help you focus. And while other cameras typically have 3x optical zooms, the A460 has a 4x zoom, which gets you closer to your subject.

A dial at the top lets you quickly switch between playback, shooting, manual shooting, scene and movie modes. If you just want to point and shoot, use the standard shooting mode. The scene position offers eight common scenarios to give the best results. But for those who like to get their hands dirty, the manual mode provides control over contrast and saturation adjustments, a choice of metering modes and a manual white balance control. The only missing feature is Canon's panorama-assist mode, which is a shame. When you want to review photos, the A460 is quick to switch modes and fast to display the next photo. You can zoom in up to 10x to check focus, too.

Sharp practice

We were impressed with the excellent quality of photos when looking at them in the bundled ZoomBrowser software. Whether indoors and outdoors, the PowerShot consistently produced well-exposed, sharp images. The auto white balance works well in most situations, and colours were faithfully captured. It's hard to see a difference in the level of detail between this and a similarly priced 7-megapixel camera. The flash is relatively powerful, and noise isn't a problem in low light. Unfortunately, because there's no anti-shake function, you need to hold the camera very still in dimly lit rooms to avoid blurry photos.

As well as the standard macro mode for close-ups, there's a super macro mode buried away in the menus. It lets you get so close to objects that the lens is almost touching them, enabling you to capture fantastic detail. Like most consumer digital cameras, the A460 can also capture movies; quality isn't the best, but acceptable, apart from slightly jerky movement.

You'll need to factor in the cost of rechargeable batteries, as only two non-rechargeable AAs are supplied. Overall, though, the A460 is great value. It's a more usable camera than the others in this price range, and you won't be disappointed with the quality of its photos.