Canon PowerShot A3100 IS

Design & Appearance

Canon courts a broad audience with a fundamentally conservative design, using a two-tone color scheme that adds a welcome bit of visual flair. The edges are nicely curved, and there's a raised slope to the front of camera as the blue panel meets the silver section, but the overall feel is a bit retro.

Size & Handling

The 3100 IS measures 3.83 x 2.29 x 1.11 inches (97.2 x 58.2 x 28.1mm) and weighs about 5.47 oz.(155g) including battery and memory card. That makes it very portable if a bit thick: better in a jacket pocket than trying to stuff it into a pair of tight jeans.

As for handling, the camera is quite comfortable and maneuverable. There's enough available real estate to place your hands without covering anything vital, and the controls are conveniently placed. The top panel has a curved indentation on the top that gives you a little extra purchase with your left index finger, and a bit of a rise on the front right that provides some extra grip. The surfaces are fairly smooth, without much texture to hold onto, but the shape and size make the A3100 IS feel secure in your hands. 

The small-but-not-too-small body is easy to handle.

Menu

There's a quick menu available while shooting, as shown below, that provides access to ISO, white balance, My Color, metering mode, drive mode and image size controls without accessing the main menu.
 

The quick access menu, in program mode

The main menu system is the classic Canon design: arranged in tabs across the top, with easy to read white text against a gray background. As you cursor through your menu options a caption appears at the bottom of the screen (the white against black type) to explain the item's function, a useful feature.

The time-tested Canon main menu layout

Ease of Use

There aren't a lot of ways you can go wrong with this simple camera. There are a few features that require a little cerebral activity to understand: the My Colors shooting customization settings, for example, won't be instinctively obvious to inexperienced photographers, and some of the scene modes are potentially confusing (lowering resolution to boost ISO, for instance). You don't have to use these features to take good pictures, though, and we're happy to see a little room to grow built into this point-and-shoot camera's controls.