CANON POWERSHOT A800

              The PowerShot A800 shouldn’t be judged by its plain looks and measly feature set. Its top notch performance and low cost put it at the top position. This 10-megapixel camera uses a pair of AA batteries which makes it bulkier than the compact models that use li-ion batteries. It comes in four color choices, silver, black, red and blue grey. The feature set is also not too great. While most other models offer at least a 28 mm wide angle lens, the A800 has a 37 mm lens with 3.3x optical zoom, so you will face situations where you will have to move quite far away from a subject to make sure it fits in your frame.
               The design of the control panel and user interface layout is typical of Canon cameras. The A800 offers four shooting modes (Auto, Program, Scene and Movie) which can be selected with a button. The Auto mode automatically detects the type of scene depending on lighting conditions and the type of subject, and adjusts the exposure parameters accordingly. The Program mode is slightly more advanced, with options to set the ISO speed, white balance, light metering and image resolution manually. The Scene mode offers 11 presets, of which the most handy are Blur Reduction, Low Light, Portrait, Fireworks and Low Shutter. Movie recording is supported at 640x480 with 4x digital zoom, which is again a shortcoming considering most cameras offer 720p recording. But considering its price, this camera is great for those who want a basic point-and-shoot.
                On the quality front, this camera defeated all others by a large margin. The reproduction of color and detail was excellent in both indoor and outdoor shots. Even noise was very well controlled in low light at high ISO speeds. Macro images can be shot at a very small distance of 1 cm, and the level of detail captured is outstanding. Video quality isn’t great, but is acceptable enough. The camera comes with a 4 GB SD card and is absolute value for money.
VERDICT: A super affordable camera that delivers awesome results.
FOR: Affordable, excellent performance, very easy to use.
AGAINST: Slightly bulky, low resolution LCD, not very feature rich.

SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 186 g; Resolution: 10 MP; Focal length: 37-122 mm;
Aperture: F3.0-F5.8; ISO range: 80-1600; LCD: 2.5-in, 115K dots;
Scenes | WB modes: 11 | 5; Video: 640x480 @30 fps; Battery:
2xAA.