The Canon PowerShot A50 looks just like a compact disposable camera and fits in your pocket just as easily.
It features a zoom lens that retracts into the body for streamlined portability, and a powered lens cover adds to its tidy appearance. The Canon offers a resolution of 1,280 by 960 pixels driven by a 1.3-million-pixel CCD.
Although there is no image-enhancement technology to pump up resolution, we were quite pleased with the performance from this little hot shot.
You get a generous two-inch LCD and optical viewfinder, a slide-show playback feature, a slow shutter action that lets you capture fast-action shots, and a snazzy 'Stitch' option for stitching together vertical and panoramic frames into a single wide shot.
Up to 106 images can be stored on the bundled 8 MB CompactFlash card, and the Canon supports DPOF format.
Verdict: Priced at less than $4,000, the Canon is ideal for those on a limited budget or who are first-time digital camera users.