Canon PowerShot SD890 IS Review Discussion

[David Rasnake]

With the Canon SD850 remaining one of the most popular compact cameras out there, its follow-up model, the Canon PowerShot SD890 IS, had some big shoes to fill: preserving everything that the SD850 did well is almost as important in this case as pushing the envelope. With more resolution, a longer zoom, improved IS and auto focus systems, and a raft of new soft features, the "new tech" bases appear to be covered. The question, then, is whether the SD890 hangs on to enough of the older SD's form and function to strike that all-important balance.

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[jetstar]

Thanks for the review! The SD890 is a little thick, imho, but otherwise seems to be an excellent ultracompact.

[David Rasnake]

The SD890 is a little thick, imho, but otherwise seems to be an excellent ultracompact.

I think so. It's interesting to me that a lot of the early reviews on the web that I've checked out since writing this one have focused, exactly as suspected, on how the SD890 isn't as good as the SD850. A lot of people it seems don't like the new interface, and the optics are definitely softer than the last time around.

Still, I feel a bit for Canon - if they had returned the SD850 basically unchanged as the SD890, we would have complained that it didn't do enough new, but in changing it up, they get criticized for changing too much.

Just a tangent I was thinking on when you posted...

dr

[rbs]

Thanks for the review David.
It seems like it it would be difficult to upgrade and buy the SD890 IS if you had the previous SD850 IS model. However, for someone like me who does not have the SD850, which camera would be a better option? For me the biggest argument for deciding on which one to buy would be image quality. Would you be able to tell me which of these models takes better pictures?

Also, the lens of the SD850 are a bit wider (35mm) than the lens of the SD890 (37mm). Would I be able to notice the wider lens of the older model, or would the lens angle difference be almost unnoticeable?

Thanks!