Small…but very powerful: The Canon IXUS 960 IS

Category: Review on Canon IXUS 960 IS Digital Camera

Posted by: 7-Feb

Strengths: High capacity, good image quality, many built-in features such as face detection and image stabilization, good looking titanium casing

Weaknesses: Manual controls missing, slow processing speed

If you are looking for a high capacity digital camera which leaves some of the point and shoot variety way behind, then the IXUS 960 IS from Canon is worth checking out. The problem is that the IXUS 960 IS looks like a point and shoot camera and if you don’t read the specs you might not realize the fact that it has a 12 megapixel capacity. The IXUS 960 IS comes enclosed in a titanium case which makes it look quite futuristic.

It is quite normal to expect a camera of 12 megapixels to have manual control. However, this Canon camera comes with very limited controls which results in some bit of frustration if you want to play around with the settings. What came as a bit of a shock as well was that the IXUS 960 IS slightly sluggish in performance as well which really takes all the fun out of capturing 'the moment'.

Even with these drawbacks, the quality of images as captured with the Canon IXUS 960 IS continues to be quite good making it a worthwhile purchase. Some of the built-in softwares includes image stabilization (which is really a boon since the camera is quite small and not so comfy to hold) and face detection which is a nice-to-have feature. So if you are looking for a simple camera with great image quality, the IXUS 960 IS is good to go.