Posted March 19, 2009
The Canon Digital ELPH has been a Best Bets “Tech Thursday” favorite since its introduction. Over the years, every camera in the line that we’ve tested has been beautifully designed and invariably took amazingly good pictures right out of the box. They’re well built too, so people tend to hang on to them for years. But the newest ELPH, the PowerShot SD780 IS, is definitely going to inspire a lot of Canon point-and-shoot owners to finally upgrade (and non-Canon owners to switch). It takes 12.1-megapixel images, so you can enlarge prints to literal poster size, and it includes all manner of advanced circuitry, including an optical image stabilizer, face-detection technology, and automatic flash- and white-balance compensation to prevent over- and underexposed shots. You can even shoot short movies on it in true high definition, and then view them on an HD monitor via the mini-HDMI connector jack. But what really grabbed us was how teeny it is: At just .72 inches thick (and 3.4 inches wide by 2.2 inches high), it’s the slimmest ELPH ever—and featherweight, at just over four ounces. In addition to gold, it also comes in black, silver, or red.
$279.99 at J&R.