Canon PowerShot A3100 IS

Viewfinder

There's only one holdout camera with optical viewfinder in Canon's A series (the A1100 IS) -- all the others, including the A3100 IS, are LCD-only.

LCD

The 2.7-inch 230,000-dot LCD is serviceable if not exciting.You can adjust the brightness level, which is potentially useful when headed outdoors, though our testing was limited to the fluorescent illumination of a back meeting room.
 

While shooting, you can have a clean screen or a basic information overlay. During playback there are three options, including a clean screen, basic info or a detailed info display with a histogram.
 

The 2.7-inch 230,000-dot LCD

Flash

The A3100 IS flash is a bit wider than many others, which should provide broader coverage. The positioning is fine, about as far as you can get from the center of the lens without popping up from the body altogether, so red-eye in portrait shots won't be much of a problem.
 

The flash controls are surprisingly complete, including auto, red-eye reduction (pre-flash), auto red-eye correction (digtally removing red-eye), flash exposure lock, fill flash, slow sync (for capturing both subject and background when shooting in the dark) and smart flash (which automatically controls aperture, shutter speed, ISO and flash output level).
 

Canon gives the flash range as 12 inches to 6.6 feet at the widest lens setting, 12 inches to 13 feet at full zoom.

The wide A3100 IS flash

Lens

The 4x zoom lens is equivalent to a 35-140mm on a 35mm camera. That's not a lot of wide-angle coverage, which will affect both scenic photos and indoor group shots. At a maximum f/2.7, the lens is reasonably fast for low-light purposes. As for close-ups, macro mode can focus to about 1.2 inches from the lens, a nice tight shot.
 

The 4x zoom has limited wide-angle coverage.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

A single port, located under a tethered plastic door on the right side of the camera, handles both USB 2.0 data (via an industry-standard connection) and video output, with mono audio.

The camera takes a standard mini USB cable

Battery

One of the big differences between the A3100IS and its predecessors in Canon's low-cost A series is the addition of a Lithium ion rechargeable battery, eliminating the need to keep buying AAs, or invest in rechargeable AAs plus charger (about $30). Canon rates the skinny NB-8L Lithium ion battery at 240 shots, which means you'd better pack the charger if you're planning a weekend away. On the other hand, fat AA batteries don't fit narrow chassis, and add weight to a camera.

Rechargeable batteries are new to the Canon A series.

Memory

Canon is breaking some ground here, as one of the first manufacturers to support the latest SDXC memory card format (in addition to the familiar SD and SDHC cards). These high-capacity XC cards are starting out expensive (Panasonic announced February shipment of a 64 gigabyte card for $600 and 48 gigabyte for $449), but history suggests those prices will plummet sooner rather than later.