Canon's G range of high-end compact digital cameras has been the source of much frustration down the years.

Despite being technically excellent, with fast zooms, support for RAW mode and mobile screens, the earliest models were incredibly slow.

Things were radically shaken up with the arrival of the G7: out went the mobile screen, RAW mode and Compact Flash memory, making room for a larger, but fixed screen, a longer zoom and a lens that had a macro mode of 1 cm.

The G9 corrected a few of these problems, seeing a return of RAW mode as well as an entirely new screen and sensor, but we've had to wait for this new G10 to get a 28 mm a wide angle lens.

And as for video, it's still not in High Definition … we did warn you they were frustrating, these cameras …

Handling

The PowerShot G10 is a little larger and a little heavier than its direct predecessor, which gives it a solid, robust feeling.

Our very first photos confirmed our first impressions that this compact is a pleasure to use.

On the top, a double dial allows you to set the ISO rate and the scene mode.  Both parts click round easily, even if you're wearing gloves--an important consideration in the winter.

On the left hand side, a third click wheel allows you to correct for over or under exposure, which is a good addition.

The back of the camera is dominated by a large three-inch screen, which benefits from a resolution of 460 000 pixels.  The anti-glare coating that Canon has applied works pretty well, but in particularly bright conditions, you can always go back to using the regular viewfinder--something of a rarity these days given the ubiquitous nature of LCD screens.

Granted, the viewfinder could be more accurate, but it matches the zoom and provides an important element of choice.

Without a doubt, though, Canon's secret weapon when it comes to ergonomics is the scroll wheel which takes up most of the rest of the back of the camera.

Using this one control, you can skip through the menus, program settings or flick through your photos.  The single drawback is how close it has to be to the edge of the camera to fit in the screen, which holds you back from wheeling your thumb round it at top speed.

The last point to note here is the presence of a hot shoe on top of the G10 for connecting an external flash.


Once again, Canon's on screen interface is a model for other manufacturers to follow when it comes to clarity and ease-of-use, though it is trailing just a little behind the competition by not including a contextual help system.

The G10 has the very latest version of the DIGIC 4 chip, which keeps it ticking over quickly. 

Powering it up takes just 1.4 seconds, and all those millions of pixels are handled rapidly, leaving only 1.84 seconds in between two JPEGs.  It's obviously longer in RAW mode, but the G10's score here is nothing to be ashamed of either. 
More disappointing is a burst mode of just 1.5 frames per second in JPEG mode. 

Image Quality

Following years of begging from amateur and professional photographers alike, Canon has finally given its high-end compact a 28 mm wide angle lens.

It's shorter than the lens on the G9, but the improvement is undeniable, especially for photographs taken indoors.

Hooked up to a 14.7 Megapixel sensor, the G10 takes great photos at every depth of field--impressive.

Distortion is visible with the wide angle lens, but it's not too bad and chromatic aberration is largely held back. 

It's a shame, though, that Canon didn't include any automatic correction for JPEGs, but the optical stabilization is excellent, meaning you can save up to three speeds.

One of the things we were keenest to test on the new G10 was its ability to deal with the electronic noised introduced into photos in low light levels or at faster speeds, and we weren't disappointed.

Up to 400 ISO, images are very sharp, but after that, the quality begins to wane: looking at a 1600 ISO photo on screen at 100%, noise is definitely present, but when we printed it on good quality A4 paper, the results were acceptable.

There are still some areas where the colors don't quite look right, especially in darker parts of the frame, but the prints were definitely useable.

The Panasonic LX3, with a more traditional noise pattern that looks closer to old-fashioned film stock, produces photos that are easier on the eye.


In general, though, colors are nice and bright, thanks to efficient white balancing which works better outside in natural light than it does under artificial light.

The final point to consider is video, which really lets the G10 down.  Little has changed: there's still no optical zoom while recording, and even the 15 fps 1024 x 600 pixels mode available on the G9 has gone. 

The G10 captures video as a MOV, rather than an AVI using H.264 compression, which allows you to save more video without losing too much quality.  The downside to this change is that not all Windows applications can edit these files as easily.

The PowerShot G10 vs. The Competition

While remaining impartial to the other great compacts out there at the moment, it's almost impossible not to notice the fierce competition between this new PowerShot G10 and the Panasonic LX3. 

In this case, Canon wins the day when it comes to useability, but Panasonic has produced a camera capable of taking sharper photos--and HD video.