Recommended Posts

Hi

Well, I am about to make my first step into the world of digital cameras. I have done some research and have finally settled on the Canon Digital IXUS 400. I was going to purchase the IXUS v3 but canon have informed me they are phasing that model out in favor of the 400.

For me this camera has a good blend of features, performs well and is attractive and stylish. I was most interested in picture quality, size, resolution, battery life, ease of use and performance under varying light conditions. All the reviews I have read about this particular camera praise it right across the board so I am confident I will be getting a sound product. I don't want it to be obsolete in say the next 6 months and so needs to last me a good few years.

I am interested in hearing your opinions on this camera and perhaps if you can suggest any good alternatives before I commit myself to the purchase?

Thanks guys.

IXUS 400 Review and Specs

post-55-1065462634.jpg

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/77955-keldyn-buys-a-digital-camera/
Share on other sites

heh, no hotlinking allowed. Nice choice of cameras though as I know a lot of people who've had older models of that camera and have had no problems with it. I definitely like the design and size of that camera. I don't think you can really go wrong with getting a Canon camera as they're pretty good in quality. 4 Megapixels is pretty decent as you'll be able to get quality pictures which you could print out and have them look nice. Even though there's cameras with 5+ megapixels now, 4 megapixels is on the higher end so the camera should last you a good while. I'd stick with the canon.

Even though there's cameras with 5+ megapixels now, 4 megapixels is on the higher end so the camera should last you a good while. I'd stick with the canon.

Yeah that is what I figure. To me, anything higher than 4MP is overkill. Unless you are something of a pro photographer who likes taking shots at insane resolutions, why would you even need that many pixels? There is only so much the human eye can discern. I would have been happy with 3 MP even. Atleast I know the camera has the potential should I ever need it.

I am really impressed with the design too. I got to play with one for a brief time today and was amazed. The thing is seriously no bigger than a credit card lol.

Thanks for your comments!

I just got this camera earlier this week. Being from the U.S. its the 'Elph' and not the 'Ixis' but other than that they are exactly the same. I like the camera a lot. Ive had 3 digital cameras so far and even though Ive only had it a few days it is my favorite of the 3. If you want a nice and easy point and shoot camera with good picture quality then you will be happy. This camera lacks some of the more advanced settings and features some of the other high end cameras offer but that was not important to me since i just wanted something easy. My only recommendation would be to get a fairly large compactflash card. I have a 256mb card and I wouldnt really recommend anything lower, especially if you use the movie mode.

<snipeed>I just got this camera earlier this week. ..........

I have a 256mb card and I wouldnt really recommend anything lower, especially if you use the movie mode....

Thanks for your comment. Because you actually own this camera could you perhaps tell me what the response time is like? From the moment you push the shutter how long until the camera takes the shot? What is your typical battery life average?

As for the movie mode, I am not too concerned. If i wanted to take video I would have got a video camera :)

The batteries for the camera should be pretty good since they're rechargable lithium ions. While you can do things like take off the view screen for shots, or not using the brightest flash in some situations, the battery should last you a good while. It's nice that you don't need to actually go out and buy lithium batteries and can just plug the battery for this into a charger.

Keldyn.. thats exactly the same camera i've been looking at. Unfortunately in Canada its $700 (before 15% tax) and thats a little out of my price range.

So I was looking at alternatives that wouldn't sacrifice too much but would save me a little money. I was looking through reviews, and the Canon PowerShot A70 looks quality, and its also $200 cheaper here (before tax) Maybe you'd want to take a look?

http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a70-60/index.html

(a70 no a60 ;) oh and be sure to click the "Sample Images" link on the left to see the kind of quality you can expect. powerful camera if you ask me.)

I have a FujiFilm FinePix A101 1.3Mega Pixels [?120] Its Ok. nothing special, but i guess for the price its average. The Battery life is appaling. It uses 2 AA batteries and without the LCD screen on it takes around 5-15 mins after it being turned on and its dead without taking pics. When the LCD is on it lasts about 1-3 mins MAX! I think yours will be alot better then mine though, should be no worries:))

Keldyn..  thats exactly the same camera i've been looking at. 

lmao Why doesn't that surprise me? ;) Funny you mention the a70. It was another camera I looked at today whilst shopping around. Actually got to play with it too :) There are 3 on my list at the moment. The IXUS 400, the a70 and the Olympus MJU 300 Digital. That is one sweet camera. (Y)

Yeah, I am a little peeved about the pricing of the IXUS 400. Down here in Australia it is selling for $1099 but I have talked them down to $929 so far. Now I just need to make up my mind which one to get.

I went for the MJU 300 while down at Heathrow (Duty Free :)) and a very nice camera it is... it has a lovely aluminium body and has a nice sturdy design and weight to it.

I really like the Olympus cameras in general, as they are very simple to use - and have some useful features like the Panoramic mode and the MJU 300/400 have a remote control rather then depending on the self-timer! The LI-ion battery is a superb addition to the camera and lasts ages - flash or no flash!

My only complaint about the MJUs is that the XD memory cards are too small, not ?Mb? wise but ?dimension? wise! The cards are only about 2cm x 1.5cm - very easy to lose...! I have just ordered the carry case for it - but at ?25 it is very expensive - it had better be gold plated!

Colin

Keldyn: I have an Canon Powershot (same line that your camera, but older), and I recomend you to buy a camera not so compact (I love the G3).

The camera is excellent, but sooner you may want to play with different switches (exposition times, etc), and you have to enter into the funtion menu, select the new switches and shot, this is a problem when you are in the field.

just my 2 cents

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I'm fine with a little reasonable promotion of Edge, but the degree which they do it right now I consider extremely unreasonable. 
    • Microsoft AI boss no longer believes that AI will replace human workers by David Uzondu Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft AI, recently took back his statements concerning white-collar jobs that he gave to the Financial Times in an interview made back in February, where he claimed that AI would replace office workers within 12 to 18 months. On Monday's episode of The Verge's Decoder, Suleyman recast the technology as more like a helpmate than a tool designed to take over your job. He explained that smaller office duties will "increasingly become digitized, automated" as people generate more digital materials. During the discussion, Suleyman emphasized a "very important distinction" between "tasks" and "jobs" to clarify his previous claims. He argued that his earlier comments only referred to individual actions that people perform at their desks. Suleyman used to work for DeepMind, the research lab he co-founded in 2010 alongside Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg, before he left in 2022 to establish Inflection AI and build an empathetic digital assistant. Microsoft hired him in March 2024 to lead its newly formed "Microsoft AI" division, placing him in charge of consumer products like Copilot, Bing, and Edge. His February comments also detailed plans for Microsoft to achieve self-sufficiency with a $140 billion infrastructure budget to train frontier models, predicting that creating a customized AI will soon feel like creating a podcast or a new blog: The 41-year-old is not the only AI executive who's softened his "AI will replace you" stance. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, last month used X to push back against employment panic by arguing that his startup builds tools to assist humans rather than build replacements. He had previously garnered backlash by suggesting that many modern office roles that AI might replace did not qualify as "real work" in the first place, at least when you compare desk jobs to physical, historical labor like farming.
    • Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2026.001.21662 by Razvan Serea Adobe Acrobat Reader DC software is the free, trusted standard for viewing, printing, signing, and annotating PDFs. Its the only PDF viewer that can open and interact with all types of PDF content – including forms and multimedia. It’s connected to Adobe Document Cloud – so you can work with PDFs on computers and mobile devices. Adobe Document Cloud is a revolutionary, modern and efficient way to get work done with documents in the office, at home or on-the-go. At the heart of Document Cloud is the all-new Adobe Acrobat DC, which will take e-signatures mainstream by delivering free e-signing with every individual subscription. Document Cloud includes a set of integrated services that use a consistent online profile and personal document hub. With Adobe Document Cloud, people will be able to create, review, approve, sign and track documents whether on a desktop or mobile device. Businesses will be able to take advantage of Document Cloud for enterprise which provides enterprise-class document services that integrate into systems of record such as CRM, HCM, CLM, and CMS, adding speed, efficiency and transparency to getting business done with documents. Adobe Acrobat Reader DC new feature highlights: Work with PDFs from anywhere with the new, free Acrobat DC mobile app for Android or iOS. Select functionality is also available on Windows Phone. Use the new Fill & Sign tool in your desktop software to complete PDF forms fast with smart autofill. Download the free Adobe Fill & Sign mobile app to add the same option to your iPad or Android tablet device. Save money on ink and toner when printing from your Windows PC. Store and access files in Adobe Document Cloud with 5GB of free storage. Get instant access to recent files across desktop, web, and mobile devices with Mobile Link. Sync your Fill & Sign autofill collection across desktop, web, and iPad devices. Adobe PDF Pack premium features includes: Convert documents and images to PDF files. Use your mobile device camera to take a picture of a paper document or form and convert it to PDF. Turn PDFs into editable Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or RTF files. Combine multiple files into a single PDF (web only). Get signatures from others with a complete e-signature service. Send, track, and confirm delivery of documents electronically instead of using fax or overnight services (tracking not available on mobile). Store and access files online with 20GB of storage. Download: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 64-bit | 719.0 MB (Freeware) Link: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Home Page | Release Notes | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Meta will now use data from outside businesses to personalize AI responses by David Uzondu In an update that's rolling out globally (except in a handful of countries), Meta will use your data from outside businesses to personalize your AI responses and your primary feeds. Meta already utilizes your shopping activity to target ads, but the company now plans to expand this tracking to personalize other "parts of your experience" like feed algorithms and AI assistant chats. The company is replacing the two settings ("Your activity off Meta technologies" and "Activity from other businesses") that currently let you disconnect off-platform activity with a single, renamed setting called Activity from other businesses. If you don't want Meta to manipulate your feed and AI responses using your outside history, you can just turn the Activity from other businesses setting off in your account settings. This toggle resides within your Accounts Center, applying your choice to every connected profile. Turning this off will not stop companies from sending your data to Meta. The company will still collect your web interactions, but it only uses them to train products, while still accessing external accounts you connect. When The Verge spoke to Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez, the representative said that this update will exclude several locations at launch, including the European region, the UK, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Kenya. The new update comes at a time when the social media giant is recovering from a major PR disaster involving generative AI. Last week, there was a huge security issue on Instagram where attackers figured out a way to trick Meta AI into handing over account ownership (even if the victim had 2FA enabled). Some of the affected accounts include the dormant Obama White House profile, cosmetics brand Sephora, the Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, and security researcher Jane Manchun Wong. Internally, the company also had to scale back plans on its Model Capability Initiative (MCI), an employee-monitoring program designed to train corporate AI models by recording worker keystrokes and screen activity, after employees raised privacy concerns and complained about severe battery life drain.
    • JetBrains is working to cut false positives in RustRover 2026.2 by David Uzondu Recently, JetBrains released the fifth EAP build of its dedicated IDE, RustRover 2026.2, bringing improvements like a Run gutter icon for criterion_main! macro benchmarking and a feature that alerts you when there are unused traits in your current scope. Now, the company is out with a blog post addressing one of the "most common" complaints from users: false positives. In RustRover, a false positive occurs when the editor incorrectly highlights something as an error even though the project compiles and runs successfully. This mismatch flags a gap between the IDE's internal intelligence and the actual compiler. When the editor flashes red warnings over perfectly valid code, developers lose trust in the tool, which stalls momentum. Traditionally, RustRover runs cargo check to detect compiler errors and warnings, but it also relies on its own code analysis engine to power real-time features. To provide quick feedback, this engine parses your source code into a syntax tree while inferring types and resolving names as you type. Because this engine must work on broken, half-written code and react instantly, its logic sometimes diverges from the compiler's, producing false positives that do not exist in the compiler's eyes. JetBrains said that it has a "dedicated task force" focused specifically on identifying and fixing false positives by analyzing user reports and examining large-scale open-source projects. To speed up this process, the team built an internal system modeled after Crater, the famous Rust project that compiles and runs tests for every single crate published on crates.io. This automated pipeline compares the diagnostics from RustRover's analysis with actual compiler output to catch discrepancies before they reach users, ensuring smoother workflows. RustRover, for those who're unaware, is a dedicated IDE designed specifically for Rust developers. It's been around for a couple of years now, providing features like built-in debugging via LLDB, seamless cargo integration, advanced macro expansion, and HTML support. JetBrains distributes the app under two licensing models: a paid commercial subscription and a free option for non-commercial use.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      Primer1st earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Experienced
      JayZJay went up a rank
      Experienced
    • Reacting Well
      Sir_Timbit earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      rubentuben8 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      ARaclen earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      512
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      229
    3. 3
      Edouard
      134
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      87
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      80
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!