Beautiful, ultra-compact, super-slick and friendly to use, plus great quality. A winning combination from Canon.

We've been lucky to have hands-on review time with two of the most hotly-anticipated compacts cameras we've seen for some time. See our photos and first impressions of the Powershot SX200 IS and Lumix DMC-TZ7 (also known as ZS3)

We've found a digital compact under $150 that's not junk. Canon’s efforts to swamp the planet under five feet of compact cameras continues with its latest batch of PowerShot models.

A stylish and capable camera, further enhanced by wireless tech

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

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

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

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

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

Two of the best small compacts on the market. Quality differences are on a knife edge, but the Canon wins for superior features and handling.

A superbly easy-to-use and feature-laden compact camera that’s well worth the price.

A superbly easy-to-use and feature-laden compact camera that’s well worth the price. Same titanium shell as before, with a lowlight ability.

It’s the stills camera that thinks it’s a video camera. A high definition video camera.

A beautiful example of high technology, but we have reservations about the ultimate quality of images.

The Ixus 60 delivers superb image quality and is beautifully designed and built.

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

Cheap, sexy, slim and fully-featured. A dream for ultra-portable photography.

Anyone who used the IXUS 40 mightwonder how Canon could possiblyimprove on it, but that’s precisely whatit has done.

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.

If the Ixus i were any smaller it would be plain inconvenient to use. Weighing just over 100g, it’s certainly a camera you can keep with you all the time. As you’d expect at this size and price, there are limitations, the most obvious being the fixed focal length lens, but there’s plenty else to be thankful for.