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.

For example the first few frames shot at the beach had a noticeable bluish tinge, however after a few seconds the colours balanced to more natural hues. There was a similar delay when shooting in night mode; however, once it had adjusted to the light (or lack of it) the camera did a fair job of capturing kangaroos in the wild lit only be the headlights of a car.
The lens is up to the usual Canon standard and the 18x optical zoom remains sharp until almost at maximum magnification and even then there is only slight degradation. The electronic stabiliser holds the camera reasonably steady, although at anything past 10x magnification any camera is going to be difficult to hold steady without a tripod.
The LCD is only fair in normal outdoor light and - like most of its competitors - virtually unviewable in bright sunlight, however the electronic viewfinder works well and the LCD is clear and bright in artificial light.

The still camera function allows you to snap a 1.23 megapixel still image to the 8MB SD memory card provided. Canon's quality lens assures a sharp picture in most conditions and resolution is just enough to print a 6 x 4 photograph.

When compared with its predecessors the MVX250i's 543 grams is not particularly heavy however, compared to all but the Panasonic GS120 it was positively chubby.
It comes packaged with Canon's own Video Presenter software for Windows, which is getting better with each new edition but is still not a patch on Apple's iMovie. The one good thing about it is that if you have a Mac, iMovie will automatically detect the camera as soon as you have connected the FireWire and turned it on.

All up the MVX250i is a reasonably priced, well featured camera.