Canon typically puts out a good digital video camera and for a while had the market fairly well sown up. However, there is now plenty of competition and Canon can no longer just rely on its reputation to keep it at the top. The MVX250i is a mid range camera designed for average users who want something more than the bare basics. Its 860,000 pixel (effective) CCD provides a good quality picture in most cases, including in night mode. However, it can be slow to find a good colour balance.

Like the others in Canon’s MV500 series, the MV530i is about twice the size of Canon’s MVX2i mini cam, but is still comfortable to hold and use.

Superb, stylish, solid... but sabotaged by poor controls

Canon's S820 has persistently fought off numerous challengers and remains one of the best photo printers on the market.

Whereas a couple of years ago Canon might have described this as a mini camcorder, it now describes it as a compact multimedia DV camera. Certainly by comparison with the others in this month's labs it's not mini, however it does manage to pack a lot of features into a relatively small package. It is an upright camera rather than the longer, squatter shape of the MVX250i and weighs 43 grams less than its bigger but cheaper brother.

A stylish and capable camera, further enhanced by wireless tech

Small but solid. The Ixus 75 is perfect for holiday snappers – just watch out when the sun goes down

Canon's reign over the compact digital camera market looks set to continue with this offering.

The PowerShot G series has earned Canon a good reputation and, thankfully, the G5 does nothing to dent it. Not that it will win awards for styling, as the G5 remains slightly boxy for our liking and the casing has more plastic than the G3. It also feels every gram of its 487g weight; the similarly heavy Fuji S5000 is more comfortable to hold and use.

It was a very close race between the Canon MV630i and the Sony TRV 355E as to which camera should take out the overall award. While the MV630i is $170 dearer, it has a better still photo resolution (1,024 x 768 compared to a screen-only 640 x 480), but the TRV 355E has superior PC connectivity and editing software.

Large form factored and decked out in buttons, this unit features the incredibly easy to use Canon Toolbox 4.1 software

This is a top of the range DV camera that packs a ton of features into a camera half the size of many of its competitors without compromising on quality at all.

In too many ways, this IXUS isn’t good enough to justify its high price

Tiny, intuitive and a great performer, the IXUS 85 is the ideal carry-anywhere camera

The LBP-2410’s real strength clearly lay in its speed, as opposed to its print quality. It was the third fastest printer overall, but fell in the shadow of the Labs Winner OKI C5100 for printing times and TCO over both low and high monthly duty cycles.

The first thing we noticed about this printer was its strange physical resemblance to the Labs Winner, and significantly more expensive, HP LaserJet 1300. There are plenty of technical specs to differentiate the two, including RAM, print resolution and OS support, all swinging in HP’s favour though.

The MultiPASS C100 is a matured version of the C75 yet still manages to keep its price low. Many of the features in the C75 have been kicked up a notch, and the improvements make the C100 more productive and better value for money.

The AF could do with being a bit quicker, and a longer zoom would be good, but it’s still a gem

Narrowly missing out on an award, much effort has gone into the aesthetics of this unit as it has into the feature set.