The Canon Digital IXUS 850 IS combines every piece of cutting edge technology currently available in the digital camera market into one beautifully made high-performance package, and tops it off with superb image quality. It’s an expensive luxury gadget, but if you really want the best then you should expect to pay a little extra for it.

If you want a stylish, ultra-compact camera with a wide-angle lens, then the Canon PowerShot SD800 IS Digital ELPH is definitely a good choice. There are some image quality tradeoffs that come from having a tiny camera with this kind of lens, but the typical point-and-shooter probably won’t be bothered by most of them.

Canon continues to impress us with their diminutive Digital ELPH series cameras. And, the PowerShot SD800 IS is no exception. If you’re in the market this holiday season for a stylish, durable, and ultra-compact model that captures awesome photos and can be tucked away easily, then this might just be the model you’re looking for.

The Canon Digital IXUS 850 IS is an excellent ultra compact digital camera – image quality isn’t perfect – but it is very good with great colour and detail. Throw in a wide angle lens to help you get more of your friends in the photo, and then add optical image stabilisation to help make sure your photos are sharp even in low light, and you end up with a cracking camera that you can take anywhere and use in almost every situation. The only aspect of the camera that might put you off is the price when compared to the competition.

The SD 700 IS was an easy ‘Highly Recommended’, this one doesn’t quite make the grade simply because here at dpreview we put a lot of weight on image quality, which is the one area where the SD 800 IS can’t compete with the older model.