Canon A80

The Canon A80 shares many of the same features as its cousin, the Canon A70 digital camera, but throws in a few perks as well. You still get the same excellent resolution and exposure, plus all the manual and automatic settings. In addition, the Canon A80 offers a four-megapixel CCD for enhanced viewing clarity, as well as a free 128MB memory card, which is significantly larger than the standard storage formats.

The A80 also boasts a 3x optical zoom and a 3.6x digital zoom for a substantially longer range. Sometimes the extended capability leads to blurriness, but this is true of most digital zooms. Many cameras thus use an interpolation function to translate the data lost when images are expanded. There's a noticeable difference in image quality, but you can always stick with the optical zoom alone to minimize this.

The Canon A80 Is a Great All-Around Buy

The A80 gives new users many of the luxuries of a high-end digital SLR such as the Canon Rebel digital camera, but at nearly 1,000 GBE less. While the A80 is marginally pricier than the A70, its pixels are nearly 50% larger than those of the A70, meaning better resolution on both your CCD and printouts. The A80 also gives users two custom storage modes, so once you set your meters, their readings remain the same (until, of course, you change them).

All of this flexibility makes the A80 a terrific value. You have the latitude to shoot and store pictures on your camera, transfer them to software on your PC, or output to a printer. And the A80 is compact enough to throw in a handbag or jacket pocket and take to the ballgame or a party. The model also sports a polished silver finish for a sharp look that is guaranteed to generate a buzz wherever you take it.