9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Nice optics, terrible battery implementation
Date of Review: Dec 3, 2008
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for good optics, and are ready to spend more on expensive accessories this camera is great.
Incredibly slow in-camera charging at $700 price-point? A short battery-life of 60 minutes at best? External charger a $70 accessory? This is a critical component of any camera, and Canon falls way short on battery implementation.
HD picture quality is nice, form-factor is nice, overall nice camera, with great optics. But think twice before about any good deals you find on this because it doesn't include and external charger, battery has to be charged in camera which is incredibly slow and inconvenient. Luckily they do make an external charger which is faster, but it is expensive.!
Take into consideration that this camera has a couple of accessories you will need to get:
1) extra battery approximately 60 dollars
2) external charger approximately 70 dollars
3) sdhc memory card approximately 70 dollars
So try and get this camera for as low a price as you can and be prepared to add some money to that price. Not sure what canon was thinking with the battery design on this camera, but it clearly falls short. Doesn't last long (60 minutes if you are lucky), and then charging is incredibly slow and inconvenient in-camera. I can understand a battery being an accessory, but the external charger should be included. Although the camera might be nice, it's quite useless without good power and overall battery implementation, because when it is sitting on the counter-top moonlighting as a charger instead of a camera you might miss that precious moment. Sorry Canon you missed the mark here in a critical area.
