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Canon Point and Shoot and Non-DSLR
Home > Digital Camera Reviews > Canon Digital Cameras > Canon Point and Shoot and Non-DSLR
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Canon PowerShot TX1 Digital Camera Reviewby Emily RaymondPublished on June 28, 2007
The back of the TX1 looks quite strange with a memory card door taking up the bottom third of the back and buttons cluttering the top two-thirds. A chrome band wraps around onto the back just above the middle, and protrudes ever so slightly in a smooth bump. Atop the bump is the zoom control, which looks like a shark fin and can be pushed up and down by a few millimeters each way. Icons surround the fin depicting the zoom and magnification levels. The mode dial’s ribbed edge can be seen on the right edge. Just below the zoom control is a large, square movie button that has a red center and has a red movie camera icon next to it. To the lower left of the video recording button is a tiny LED that indicates when the camera is accessing the memory card in the door just below.
The back looks a little strange, especially to consumers who look at digital cameras more often than camcorders. The layout, however, is fairly common on pistol-grip camcorders. Left Side (6.5) The left side of the Canon TX1 has the Canon logo near the upper left corner and a circular LED-lit power button in the upper right corner. Below the power button is a set of nine holes that make up the built-in microphone. Below these features is a wide chrome band labeled "10x Optical Zoom" on the left side. This band is where the LCD monitor’s hinge is housed. From here, the LCD folds upward and rotates to just about any angle. The back of the monitor - the side that shows when folded into the camera body - has two series of holes that make up the stereo speaker. “7.1 megapixels” is printed in the lower left corner.
The right side is quite plain looking, but Canon threw it’s logo on a silver highlight just above the middle to liven up the look. At the back side of the logo is the circular mode dial, which has a ribbed edge that protrudes off the back. The mode dial has only four positions: playback, auto, manual (this is more of a program mode), and scene. The very top of this side has a shallow cutout for resting place the finger atop the shutter release button.
The is very plain. “Image stabilizer” is printed at the front edge and at the back is the LED-lit print/share button. Near the front on the right side is a strangely shaped cutout area with a square-ish shutter release button.
The botton of a camera is usually the dullest side. However, the TX1 is cluttered with contours and covers. The right side of the camera’s bottom folds upwards and away into the LCD monitor; this leaves a much narrower base that makes the TX1 vulnerable to tipping. In the middle of the bottom is the battery compartment, which is very thin. The thin plastic door that covers the compartment opens by sliding outward. There is a tiny rubber cover in the center to allow the power adaptor in. On the left side is a long and rectangular rubber cover that hides the three jacks on the camera body. This rubber strip doesn’t seal well, so don’t set the camera down anywhere near moisture. Towards the front is a metal tripod mount with the wrist strap eyelet just in front of it.
[page title="Testing / Performance"]
To make it a little easier on the eyes and brain, Imatest also output a graph showing each of the chart’s 24 tiles spread onto the spectrum. The center of the image is unsaturated and becomes more and more saturated towards the edges. The ideal colors from the GretagMacbeth chart show up as squares and the Canon TX1’s colors are circles. The line connecting the two shapes shows just how much error there is between the two colors; ideally, that line wouldn’t be seen at all.
Even though the white balance is very close to spot on, all of the other colors are off. The mean color error came out to 7.77 and colors were oversaturated by 13.6 percent. The overall color score is a lackluster 7.72, which is one of the worst scores we’ve seen from a recent Canon digital camera.
Preset (9.01)
Still Life Sequences
Resolution (5.56)
The sharpest image snapped by the Canon PowerShot TX1 is shown above. It was taken using a focal length of 19.8mm and an aperture of f/4.4; the ISO was set at the lowest 80. The image looks fairly sharp but shows fading in the edges and color fringing throughout; it is especially vibrant on the top edge. Noise - Manual ISO (6.25)
By ISO 400, already 2 percent of the image is degraded to noise. It only gets worse from there. It jumps to 3 percent at ISO 800 and more than 4 percent at ISO 1600. In general, users should keep the ISO as low as possible and try not to exceed 400.
None of the images are completely grilled, so that’s good news. Here’s the bad news: big chunky noise crawls all over the image the longer the shutter is open. The shutter can open up to 15 seconds, so we tested it from 1-15 seconds. The chart below shows the exposure time on the horizontal axis and the percentage of noise in the image on the vertical axis.
From 1 to 5 seconds, the amount of noise actually decreases – perhaps as the noise reduction system kicks in. From there on, it only goes up.
The chart below shows the number of exposure values captured in a single image on the vertical axis and the manual ISO setting on the horizontal axis.
Low Light - 30 lux
Resolution
Video Resolution - High Definition (100% crops)
Video Resolution - Standard Definition (100% crops) Outdoor Motion
Don’t abandon all hope for the Canon TX1. There are some good points to its movie mode: the focus was excellent and the motion itself was smooth, although it was a little better in SD than HD. Those few rays of hope are outweighed by the poor video processing and compression, poor color accuracy in bright light, and an abundance of noise in low light. And don’t forget the sheer madness involved when trying to connect the handful of cables to even view the HD video. Overall, the TX1 isn’t a worthwhile purchase as a video camcorder, though hopefully its pitfalls will help further the development of a true hybrid device [page title="Components"] The TX1 has Canon’s new Pure Color technology, which resists glare, scratches, and fingerprints. The anti-glare coating looks almost purple when the screen is off and viewed in moderate light. The surface feels more like soft plastic than glass and thus doesn’t scratch easily. As for fingerprints, I still left a few prints on the screen but they didn’t look as greasy and gross as the ones on the rest of the stainless steel camera body. Overall, it seems to work pretty well. One big drawback to the LCD screen is that it must be folded out at all times. Canon’s A-series digital cameras allow users to either fold the LCD out or leave it in and view the image on the back. The TX1’s LCD folds out of the left side and can be folded back in with the screen facing out, but then to view it, the camera would have to be flipped horizontally, which puts the LCD on the top of the camera and the shutter release button on the right side; it feels very backwards. The screen also has to be folded out when changing memory cards because the screen blocks the door. The screen does a nice job of resisting glare and fingerprints, and the rotating hinge allows the screen to be viewed at any angle. However, rotating the screen while shooting video makes for jumpy movies and folding it into the side of the camera isn’t practical. Flash (4.0)  The TX1 has a built-in flash unit just above the lens at the top of the camera’s vertically oriented front face. According to Canon, the flash can only reach from 1.6-6.6 feet at best when the lens is zoomed wide and 3.3-3.9 feet when zoomed in. It’s almost laughable that a flash wouldn’t be effective more than 3.9 feet when users are zoomed in 10x. Perhaps laugh, but perhaps cry too. In the macro mode, the flash is effective from 1.1-1.6 feet. The flash is so weak that it doesn’t often overexpose subjects, a common problem with the flash in macro mode. There is no flash exposure compensation like on some other Canon digital cameras, so users may have to supplement the flash with their own lighting. Canon sells a PowerShot accessory flash unit, which can be purchased for about $100. The HF-DC1 flash extends the reach much farther, but is also about the same size of the camera and will look a bit ridiculous next to it. By pushing the joystick to the right, users can set the flash mode to On, Off, or Auto. The list may seem skimpy, but that’s only because the other flash options are located in the recording menu where slow sync and red-eye reduction can be turned on and off. The red-eye reduction should be turned on at all times, but the drawback is that it adds to the actual time it takes to snap a picture. And sometimes it still doesn’t work. This is the worst flash I’ve seen in awhile in terms of red-eye. In about 20 percent of the portraits that I took, red eyes glared back at me. There is a red-eye fix feature in the playback menu and it appears to be effective (and even saves the picture as a separate file), but it’s annoying to have to fix every fifth image. The flash fired fairly evenly when zoomed out with only a little darkening in the corners of the frame. When zoomed in, the entire bottom edge of the picture was darker. The TX1’s weak flash shouldn’t be relied on to illuminate scenes. And once again, beware the scary red eyes. Zoom Lens (8.0)  This hybrid digital camera has a Canon 10x optical zoom lens that reaches far, but not wide. It measures 6.5-65mm, which is equivalent to 39-390mm in 35mm format. This won’t be good for landscape shots, although there is a panorama stitch mode that can merge multiple images to create wider pictures. The lens has max apertures of f/3.5 in wide and f/5.6 in telephoto; neither is very impressive and won’t let in as much light as other f/2.8 lenses, but is typical of small 10x lenses on the market. The Canon PowerShot TX1’s lens has a sliding metal door that protects it when the camera is turned off. When powered on, the door snaps open and the lens pops out of the camera about ¾-inch. The lens moves when the paddle-like zoom control is pushed up (telephoto) or down (wide). The lens on the TX1 is placed just above the middle of the back; it didn’t seem high enough – although there really isn’t any space above it either. It is stuck in an awkward place that makes handling a difficult endeavor. The control is sensitive, stopping at nearly 40 focal lengths within the range. Usually, the zoom moves at a decent pace – about 3.5 seconds from one end to the other. The optical zoom is available while recording movies. However, the zoom moves twice as slowly from one end to the other. The control is sensitive to the touch too, so it can slow down even more than that. If users want a little more than 10x zoom, there is 4x digital zoom available. It can be turned on in the recording menu. The digital zoom can be used with standard 4:3 movies, although it isn’t recommended because it degrades image quality. Users should be wary of the telephoto end of the zoom range. The flash is only effective from 3.3-3.9 feet when the lens is zoomed in, which is laughable and will rarely be useful. The auto focus is a little slower too, so there’s a greater chance of missing fleeting moments. The long zoom lens is backed up by an optical image stabilization system that noticeably reduces blur in still images and keeps the picture steady in movies. Read: “Reduces,” not “eliminates.” Even with image stabilization turned on, blurry pictures still appeared when shutter speeds were too slow or the lighting was too dim. It works well in eliminating the effects of shaking hands but doesn’t do as well with shaking subjects. The image stabilization mode can be changed in the recording menu. It can be turned off, although it probably shouldn’t ever be turned off unless trying to conserve battery power, which unfortunately may need to be done more often than you’d like. See the battery section for details.) The stabilization can be set to run continuously, from side to side only (Panning), and when the exposure is locked (Shoot Only). The image stabilization works well and is most effective in the movie mode when hands are fumbling with the awkward camera. The 10x lens has its tradeoffs. It is very compact, which may attract consumers who want a hybrid camera without lugging around an enormous lens like the chunky 12x one on the PowerShot S3 IS or S5 IS. The TX1’s lens doesn’t get a lot of light from the relatively small apertures though, and it doesn’t provide a very wide focal length. It is a very basic long zoom lens and is typical of tiny lenses crammed into tiny cameras. [page title="Design / Layout"] Model Design / Appearance (7.0) The Canon PowerShot TX1 makes a nice shiny metal box but an awkward digital camera. The device is designed to be held vertically, which departs from the traditional horizontal appearance of most compact digital cameras; it more resembles the pistol grip camcorder style. This vertical design is also seen in the Sanyo HD2 and the Sony M2, both hybrid digital camera-camcorders. The Canon TX1 is boxy with slightly softened edges. The 1.8-inch LCD screen folds out like a wing on the left side and the zoom lens pops out of the front. When turned on and folded out, the TX1 is a bit top-heavy and often tips from its skinny base. This is a common problem that also happens with the Sanyo HD2. The body is very compact and constructed from stainless steel. It looks similar to Digital Elph cameras but is a little thicker and certainly more awkward when the LCD is folded out. The TX1 isn’t the sexiest digital camera, but it looks good when its folded up. Size / Portability (7.25) The TX1’s boxy stainless steel body resembles the Digital Elph series, but it has the thickness of an A-series model. Still, this camera is very compact compared to camcorders with high definition capabilities. At 3.5 x 2.4 x 1.1 inches, the Canon PowerShot TX1 is smaller and more pocketable than its direct competition, the Sanyo HD2. The camera’s small size is one of its most marketable features. The Canon TX1 can slip into a pocket and dangle from a wrist with the included faux leather strap The wrist strap has a clasp that allows users to tighten it around their wrist, which is a nice feature. That feature is especially nice because the TX1 has some gravitational issues. Shall we say it’s “big boned”? It weighs 7.8 oounces without the card and battery, which feels heavy for its slim size. Add in the fact that the camera holds awkwardly with the fingers wrapped around front, the thumb navigating the back, and the palm supporting the weight, and the heft becomes quite an issue. The weight complicates handling and the size complicates the size and placement of control buttons and components. For instance, the flash is mashed just above the lens and the mode dial is randomly placed on the otherwise desolate right side of the camera. The Canon TX1 doesn’t necessarily need a carrying case because it looks durable (when folded up, of course) and slides into a pocket. It might be a good idea to keep the stainless steel from scratching though. After all, the TX1 is a camera that will be sharing pockets with iPods, Treos, Palm Pilots, Blackberrys, and other gadgets. Handling Ability (4.0) The Canon PowerShot TX1 is a nightmare in terms of handling. It is fairly flat and free of handling features. This camera is held differently than the traditional digital camera. The middle and ring fingers grip the front, while the pinky finger offers some support on the bottom. The index finger sits at the top, and since the top is much taller than most digital cameras it has to stretch a bit farther. The thumb sits on the back and splits time between the zoom control in the middle and the surrounding buttons, which are all small and too close together, complicating matters even more. This is designed to be a one-handed camera, but its hefty weight and unevenly distributed base makes it hard to hold it steady. Users will often need their left hand to steady the LCD screen so they can rotate the mode dial or grip the camera while jumbling around with the awfully tiny joystick.
The placement of the controls is a bit awkward. I kept wanting to navigate with the zoom control, which is on a little bump on the back. To truly get around the menus though, I had to stretch my thumb farther than was actually comfortable and manipulate a tiny feeble joystick that only went the correct direction about half the time. Canon’s A-series of PowerShot digital cameras have folding and rotating LCD screens but they can fold back into the camera and still be viewed. The TX1’s LCD screen must be folded out when the camera is on. It can fold back into the camera with the screen facing out, but it faces out to the left side so it can’t be seen anyway. Thus, the camera can’t be held the traditional horizontal way either. An attempt to hold it that way puts the LCD screen facing up, the shutter release button on the right side, and the zoom lens still poking out front. One major complaint about the Canon TX1 is that it doesn’t allow videos to be taken for longer than an hour. The truth is, though, that as soon as you handle it, you will want to stick it back in your pocket. No one will want to hold this for anywhere near an hour. It’s too uncomfortable. Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (3.75)  The controls are small and crammed. The shutter release on the top of the camera is square-shaped and nicely placed, although it doesn’t move as smoothly as other digital cameras’ shutter buttons. The print button is also atop the camera, and it can be set to perform other functions within the setup menu. The right side of the camera hosts a dime-sized mode dial that rotates nicely. However, because of the dial’s placement, it takes a significant amount of effort from the thumb to get it moving. Due to its placement, it may even be necessary to steady the LCD screen with the left hand to rotate the dial. On the left side of the TX1 is a power button that is nicely sized and marked with a green LED. On the back is a flurry of icons around the navigational joystick designating the multiple functions the control can perform when not in the menu. The joystick control is very small and was probably chosen for this layout because it can fit in a very small space, but it isn’t very comfortable. The knob on it has a sharp edge. It doesn’t make a very good navigational control because it only goes where it was intended about half the time. It only works well when slowly and daintily pushed. There are Menu and Display buttons on the back as well; they are undersized and almost look like the bolts that are placed beneath them. The zoom control is also on the back; it is placed upon the crest of a small bump. It is shaped like a horizontal paddle that can be pushed up and down to move throughout the 10x optical zoom range. This is a stretch for the thumb to reach, but not as big a stretch as the joystick. Below the zoom control is the movie button. This can be activated from any mode at any time, which is very handy. The movie button is separate from the shutter release button so that full resolution still images can be snapped while recording a movie. Overall, the controls are on the small side but that’s the tradeoff for buying such a petite camera. Menu (7.0) The menu system can be entered with the designated Menu button on the back of the camera, and current Canon users will find the menus very familiar. They are organized into tabs and have gray backgrounds. The text is readable – as long as you have good eyesight. The 1.8-inch-sized LCD screen doesn’t allow much room for menus. Like other PowerShot digital cameras, the TX1 has a split menu system that features frequently used items in a menu accessible by pushing the Func./Set joystick.
This menu is from the manual mode; when the mode dial is set to the "SCN" position, the shooting modes reflect the many image presets available. The following is the standard recording menu accessible from the Menu button.
The previous menu is the first of three tabs that appear. It has a camera icon on its tab, while the central tab has an icon of a wrench. The setup menu is as follows.
There is also a menu tab that allows users to customize their cameras with a choice of startup images and all sorts of sounds for operation, shutter, etc. The sounds are like those on other PowerShots: howling wolves, tweeting birds, and descending aliens.
Overall, the menu system is nicely organized and very intuitive. It is composed of text, and is very readable except for the small size of the font. The biggest menu hassle is the finicky joystick that complicates navigation.
Although the Canon PowerShot TX1 records 1280 x 720 progressive video, footage is output in 1920 x 1080 interlace component video on HDTVs via the jack on the bottom of the camera labeled "component." With standard televisions, there is an AV jack too that can be set to NTSC or PAL. Users who watch high definition videos will need to connect all of the cables, as the component cable doesn’t transfer audio. Click here to read the TX1's video performance test results.
The playback mode is accessed with the mode dial, which takes a little longer than access from a button. The last image or video taken is the first to pop up on the tiny LCD screen. The screen can be viewed from many angles but it’s hard to cram friends around it for a look at the images because of the small size of the screen and its attachment to the left side of the camera, which blocks the view from the right. Images are displayed individually or in index frames of 9 at a time when the wide end of the zoom control is tapped. The telephoto portion of the control magnifies individual pictures from 2-10x and the multi-selector can then scroll around the image. Pictures can be organized into categories through the playback menu or the button atop the camera. Categories include people, scenery, events, to do, and three customizable categories. Users can jump through loads of pictures by pushing the joystick up; this allows users to jump to categories, dates, folders, movies, and image files by 10 or 100. In this fashion, pictures can be erased by category or by date, as well as one by one or all at once via the playback menu. There are plenty of editing options available from the playback menu, which is shown below.
Slide shows look good but aren’t anything fancy like the ones on new Nikons and Sonys, which include music. The menu option for categorizing photos would be good for someone who has a large memory card and doesn’t download pictures to their computer often and thus needs some on-board organization. The red-eye correction tool was very useful because there were so many pictures with red-eye in them. This simply turns the red spots in eyes to white spots, so it looks really scary if the spots are big. This also doesn’t work if the memory card is completely full; there must be some free memory to create a new file. My Colors has a nice palette that allows users to accentuate things in an image such as skin, green grass, blue skies, and red lips. It also allows users to completely change the mood of a photo with vibrant, neutral, or black-and-white settings. The sound memo is useful for biologists snapping pictures of plants and needing to add a few notes without grabbing a pen and paper. The TX1 records WAVE format files for up to one minute. The sound recorder is an interesting feature, although it seems strangely placed in this menu because it doesn’t have anything to do with playing back images. The sound recorder can record up to the capacity of the memory card and is a free-floating file, while the sound memo feature attaches the audio to a specific image. Videos can be played back in the camera too, although they look much better on a larger television screen. Videos can be played back with VCR-like controls and can even be played in five levels of slow motion and at various volumes. Files can be cut into two, but that’s as far as video editing goes on the TX1. Overall, the playback mode’s options and features are above average, but the screen upon which the images and videos are reviewed is too small to gather friends and family around. Images and videos are better reviewed on a television screen or computer monitor. Custom Image Presets (7.5) A "SCN" position on the mode dial provides users with a host of easy–to-use preset modes. The list appears at the top of the Func./Set menu when the joystick is pushed inward: Portrait, Night Snapshot, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, and Aquarium are available here. Surprisingly, there is no Landscape scene mode, which is a basic offering on other digital cameras. Perhaps it’s the 39mm focal length that prevents a decent landscape mode? Also, there isn’t a “high ISO sensitivity” mode like on many other digital cameras. The Indoor mode is the closest thing users have, but they still have to remember to manually disable the horrid flash. The scene modes still allow access to exposure compensation and image size, but not options like white balance and color modes. Several other preset modes are available from the shooting mode portion of the function menu in the manual position. Color Accent, Color Swap, Super Macro, and Stitch Assist modes can be found there.
Color Accent and Color Swap let users select colors by pushing the display button, framing a color in a superimposed box (much like setting the custom white balance), and pushing a specified direction with the joystick. Color Accent turns the image to black-and-white except for the selected color. Color Swap changes one color to another. These modes only work well for large blocks of solid color; they don’t do well with highlights and several shades of a single color. Exposure (7.75)  Metering (7.5) The metering mode can be changed when the mode dial is set to the manual position. The typical options are available: Evaluative, Center-weighted Average, and Spot. The Evaluative metering mode syncs with the face detection system when it is activated, and the spot mode is fixed to the center. ISO (7.75) The TX1’s ISO sensitivity options are found in the function menu. There is a nice wide range from 80-1600 along with Auto and High ISO Auto choices. This selection can be found on Digital Elphs, but the TX1 has a new ISO feature called Auto ISO Shift that is accessed through the recording menu. When it is activated, the camera automatically bumps up the ISO when it senses any shaking. Thus, the High ISO Auto mode stays within its 800-1600 boundary while the Auto ISO Shift works with the optical image stabilization system to determine when a higher ISO setting is needed. There is a tradeoff between image quality and high ISO sensitivity: to see how the TX1 fares, check out the Testing/Performance section of this review.
The white balance modes can also be found in the function menu: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, and Custom. The list of presets is decent, but certainly not expansive. Shade or Flash settings could’ve been included. Nevertheless, the TX1 has an all-important Custom mode, which allows users to tell the camera what is white under the current lighting conditions. This can be done easily using the joystick and the on-screen directions.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
Connectivity Software (6.5) Canon Digital Camera Solution Disk Version 30.0 comes with the TX1. This CD-ROM comes with ImageBrowser 5.8, PhotoStitch 3.1, and EOS Utility 1.1 for Macintosh and ZoomBrowser EX 5.8, PhotoStitch 3.1, Camera TWAIN Driver 6.7, and EOS Utility 1.1 for Windows. It comes with Apple QuickTime 7 too. I looked at only the Windows applications.
Canon’s EOS Utility program has a very simple interface that allows users to monitor on-camera folders, download images from the camera, shoot using a computer, and customize the camera settings. From here, users can do cool things like snap pictures with a mouse click and add sound clips to the camera for operational use (think of your own voice shouting “smile!” when the shutter is released). The CD-ROM also has PhotoStitch 3.1 on it, which is meant to complement the Stitch Assist mode on the camera. Users load images one by one and then merge then in a step-by-step tutorial-like process. There is a simple Start button but there’s room for manual adjustments too.
Jacks, ports, plugs (6.25) On the bottom of the camera is a very thin rubber rectangle that patches over the TX1’s three jacks. The cover must be pried open with a fingernail, and there isn’t much of a finger grip. The rubber material is very thin and feels like it could rip at any moment. Two of the jacks are familiar to compact digital camera users; AV and USB jacks are found on almost all models. The TX1 has separate jacks along with a jack labeled "Component." This is what connects the camera to HDTVs. Users who want to watch high-definition slide shows and videos have to hook up both the component and A/V cables because the component cable doesn’t transfer audio. This makes for a lot of wires, but smooth pictures and gorgeous video – the kind that make you think that perhaps the $499 price was worth it. There is also a rubber cover on the battery compartment door that opens so the power adaptor can be strung through. Direct Print Options (7.0) In the playback menu, the print menu appears as a tab with the other menus. It allows users to select images to print by date, category, and folder. Pictures can also be selected individually, assigned a quantity from 0-99, and added to the print order. The camera has a Print/Share button that transfers images to PictBridge printers, but the button can be set to perform other functions, including exposure compensation, white balance, custom white balance, digital tele converter, disp overlay, disp off, and play sound effect. When paired with Canon Pixma, CP and Selphy compact photo printers, ID Photo Print and Movie Print modes are available.
The TX1 comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that doesn’t get as much life as it ought to. The NB-4L battery snaps only 160 shots per charge or 240 minutes of playback time. These specs are a bit disturbing as recording video is often more taxing on a camera than snapping still images. Canon’s specs claim that the movie mode maxes out at an hour, but between the massive movie files taking up all the room on the memory card, the awful handling that causes hand cramps, and the weak battery, the TX1 won’t shoot close to that. This is very unfortunate. Comparable digital cameras get way more battery life. Users will have to tote around the included wall-mount battery charger and let the battery rest in it for 90 minutes. The other option is to purchase an extra battery and keep it on hand. Unfortunately the battery is costly so users will have to factor that into the total ($499 camera + $69 one-gigabyte SD card + $59 battery = $627. Ouch). Memory (3.75) The Canon PowerShot TX1 comes with a 32 MB MMCplus card, which won’t last long with this camera. It will record just six seconds of high definition video. The 7.1-megapixel digital camera’s main feature is its HD movie mode. High definition video takes up a lot of memory – and that’s not something that comes with the TX1. The digital camera accepts SD, SDHC, MMC, and MMCplus cards up to 4 GB. This is enough to get 26 minutes of HD video – nowhere near the one hour limit Canon advertises on its movie mode. To get the memory card in the camera, users have to have the LCD screen folded up and away from the camera body because the card compartment’s door slides into it. The TX1 doesn’t have internal memory. Other features (3.0) Sound Recorder – This feature is located in the playback menu, although it seems very oddly placed because it has nothing to do with playback. It simply records stereo audio up to the capacity of the memory card and saves it as a WAVE file rather than attaching it to an image like the sound memo feature. [page title="Overall Impressions"] Value (5.75) Canon priced the TX1 at an expensive $499. Sure, it has a lot of cool features – but is it worth it? If you want to shoot high-definition videos, the Canon TX1 is the most compact device out there but its video quality is a far cry from high definition camcorders. The camera seems to be designed for the occasional, spontaneous video-worthy moment, but there are much cheaper point-and-shoot options for that. Users who are looking for a good hybrid digital camera so they don’t have to purchase a camcorder may be disappointed. It isn’t a great camera. And it isn’t a good camcorder either: the poor compression, inability to properly handle motion, noisy footage, weak battery, poor handling, and massive video files that crowd memory cards are all problematic. By the time users buy the camera and essential memory card and extra battery, the cost goes up to at least $627 (see battery section for equation). Comparisons .jpg) Canon PowerShot S5 IS – The S5 IS weighs about a pound and measures a chunky 4.6 x 3.2 x 3.1 inches; it won’t fit in a pocket. Though it doesn’t record in high definition, it is still a good pick as a hybrid model. It records standard 640 x 480-pixel video at 30 fps but has similar perks as the TX1, such as stereo audio, a wind diffuser, and selectable audio sampling rates. It has a 12x optical zoom lens with an optical image stabilization system and a wider f/2.7 max aperture that lets in lots of light. If the TX1 makes you feel a little claustrophobic, the Canon S5 may be a better fit. It has a 0.33-inch electronic viewfinder and a 2.5-inch, 207k-pixel LCD screen. The 8-megapixel camera has dual recording buttons like the TX1 for snapping full resolution still images while recording movies. Still imaging is more of a priority on this digital camera too - there is a full range of manual, priority, automatic and scene modes. Unfortunately, like the TX1, the S5’s movie mode is limited by a few factors: it stops recording after an hour or a 4GB SD card is filled and the 4 AA batteries only last 170 shots if alkaline or 450 shots if NiMH. The Canon PowerShot S5 IS retails for $499. .jpg) Casio Exilim EX-V7 – This 7.2-megapixel digital camera shoots widescreen videos, has 33 still scene modes, and a 7x optical zoom lens in an inch-thick metal body. It is held like a traditional camera and has a vertically oriented zoom lever on its back. It does not have dual recording buttons like the Canon TX1 nor does it have the high definition designation. Still, its widescreen videos record at 848 x 480 pixels and capture 30 fps. Casio flaunts a H.264 video encoding method that stores up to 1.5x more video in the same amount of space without losing quality, according to the company. The internal 7x optical zoom lens is functional while recording video and so is the stereo audio. There is an optical image stabilization system, video editing, and an option to print slides of movies. The V7 has a list of still imaging specs like a 3 fps burst, 64-800 ISO range, and lots of color effects. The Casio V7 has a 2.5-inch LCD screen with 230,000 pixels. Its flash, which only reaches 7.2 feet, isn’t very effective at all. The V7 comes with a camera cradle, a lithium-ion battery that lasts 240 shots, and a $399 retail price tag. .jpg) Kodak EasyShare V610 – This digital camera knocks traditional design rules but not in a pistol grip sort of way. Instead, Kodak fit a 10x internal lens into a 0.9-inch metal body by dividing the zoom between two lenses measuring 38-114mm and 130-380mm. Sure, the total zoom is 38-380mm, but there is a noticeable jump between 114mm and 130mm. This is quite jarring while recording movies. The Kodak V610 records standard 640 x 480 and 320 x 240-pixel movies at 30 fps and can snap 6.1-megapixel pictures – although not at the same time. The videos are recorded as MPEG-4 files, can be divided in the camera, and play back on computers using Quick Time. The V610 only has digital image stabilization that doesn’t work nearly as well as the Canon TX1’s optical stabilization. With a slew of automatic modes and options, consumers who seek manual control will need to pass by this camera. It offers a meager ISO range up to 800, has only a few white balance settings, and takes way too long to take pictures and process them. The Kodak V610 has 32 MB of internal memory and a slot for SD, SDHC, and MMC media. The V610 also has Bluetooth wireless technology that transfers images at a rate of 3 Mbps. The 2.8-inch, 230k LCD screen on the back gives users a great view along with the simple interfa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Canon PowerShot TX1 made waves in February as Canon’s first attempt at a true hybrid digital camera-camcorder. The 7.1-megapixel TX1 borrows elements like image stabilization, stereo audio, a wind filter, and video editing from bigger cameras like the PowerShot S3 and newer S5. The TX1’s compact style and palette of exposure modes is similar to the Digital Elph series of slim cameras: automatic and scene modes are the order here. With a Digic III image processor comes trendy face detection technology, but the TX1 will be noted most for its high definition video capabilities. We took the Canon TX1 for a test spin to see if it was worth the $499 asking price. 
At 1.8 inches, the TX1’s screen is on the small side, but there really isn’t much real estate available on the camera for anything larger. Its size affects reading menus more than it does snapping pictures anyway. The screen only has 115,000 pixels, which isn’t great but sufficient. 
