Canon Digital Ixus 980 IS review

At £240, the Canon Digital Ixus 980 IS is one of the more expensive cameras here, but you can tell where your money has gone as soon as you slide it out of the box.

The body is made from sleek, curved metal, and while some of this Labs' cameras feel a little cheap, the Ixus 980 IS feels terrific in the hand.

The Ixus 980 IS's resolution is similarly class-leading: its best-quality, 4416 x 3312 images are the result of its 14.7-megapixel sensor. It's the highest resolution here and it produced some spectacular results. It did brilliantly in our tough indoor tests: our final shots were a little pale, perhaps, but far from some of the mottled, pasty-looking results we saw from the Casio device.

Even at its highest ISO1600 setting, its images were salvageable, making it one of only a few cameras here that could be seriously considered for indoor, flash-free photography. Taking the camera outside yielded similarly strong images. Zoomed to 100%, shots of trees in the background had plenty of detail and well-recorded colours.

Image quality isn't the Ixus 980 IS's only strong point: it's also incredibly responsive. Just 1.5 seconds elapsed between us pressing the button and the Ixus 980 IS being ready to shoot, a faster time than any other camera we tested. And while its continuous-shooting mode of 1.5fps is merely in the middle of the pack, it continued shooting full-resolution shots well after the magical 50 frame number. We also appreciated the click wheel on the back, which makes flipping through your pictures and changing menu features a doddle.

The Ixus 980 IS is one of only a few cameras here to tick all the manual control boxes - focus, aperture and shutter speed - which makes it a good choice for snappers looking to improve or supplement their DSLR bag with a small compact.

All in all, then, the Canon Digital Ixus 980 IS is a great camera. Expensive, certainly, but also one of the very best combinations of speed, image quality and features available. We wholeheartedly recommend it.