Along with the Sony Cyber-shot P-93, the Canon Powershot A95 is the big lad of this roundup with a pretty decent 5-megapixel CCD. The rest vary from 3-4-megapixel. While this does give the Canon a bit of an edge over the competition in terms of resolution and functionality, it's the camera's other attributes that cemented this unit in the top three.

The Canon A300 is an entry level 3.2-megapixel camera with rather plain specifications and an average range of photgraphic features.

Once the lens shutters are opened, the Canon PowerShot S50 powers up and welcomes you with a tone. Similar to the smaller Canon IXUS 400 in terms of features, it too ships with a 32MB CF card and AV cables. With fairly easy to navigate menus, the S50 also features video capture and a thumb-sliding preview mode.

A sexy magnesium-alloy housing gives the IXUS 400 one of the most compact camera bodies submitted this month. The bright 118,000-pixel LCD gives an excellent preview of your images or for shot placement when not using the viewfinder.