In the spring, Canon unveiled its Ixus 100 IS, an ultra-compact little camera that sits easily in your hand.  Although we were very much impressed by its looks, the lack of a wide-angle option on a lens that had some room for improvement were both concerning.  The good news that these two elements are the only thing that have changed on this new Ixus 120 IS.

Handling

If we were being lazy--or claiming too much work with all of the new cameras we have to test at the moment--we could be tempted to refer you directly to the test of the Ixus 100 IS.  We've resisted the temptation, though, so let's take a look.  The Ixus 120 IS has a square form with lightly rounded corners.  The quality of the construction is exceptional, with very precise components.  The only small problem is the rubber flap covering the USB and HDMI connectors.

The number of buttons on the back is at first surprising, but you soon get used to it--especially because the 120 IS shares the same excellent interface as other Ixus cameras, with clear, well thought-out menus.


Compared to the Ixus 100 IS, the screen on the 120 IS is just a little larger (5 mm), but has the same resolution.  The small viewfinder has gone, and the whole thing is a tiny bit thicker: switched off, the lens is 2 mm longer.  However, this larger lens has been very well integrated into the rest of the camera, with its outer edge smoothed out so there's nothing to catch when you slide it into your pocket.

The camera behaves just like you'd expect for a clone of the Ixus 100 IS, and we suspect that the two cameras are based on almost entirely the same internal components.  Turning it on is fast at just over a second, and focusing in good light conditions is unproblematic at any focal length.  There are, however, two problems: the autofocus and face detection systems both struggle at night and the time you need to wait between two photos is a little long.

Image Quality

The only new factor here is the lens.  But because the one on the Ixus 100 IS is far from perfect and the new one includes a wide-angle without being much bigger, we weren't expecting any wonders.

We had something of a surprise though: there is plenty of detail across the whole depth of field, and it's more even in wide-angle than the Ixus 100 IS was.  It won't win Canon any awards, but at 100 ISO, the images produced were perfectly reasonable and A3 prints would be entirely useable in the whole depth of field.  There are traces of chromatic aberrations and purple fringing, above all in shadowy areas at wide-angle, but it's nothing dreadful even for relatively large prints.  The Ixus 120 IS generally does better than its predecessor in this area.


The noise management system performs as expected, with blurriness visible from 400 ISO, which spreads rapidly to cover the noise.  It's kept in check up to 1600 ISO, but all of the detail goes with it.  Optical stabilization works at up to 1/8s, and although we managed some good results at 1/4 s, it's not as powerful as what's on offer with other cameras.  On this point, it performs exactly like the Ixus 100 IS.

The 720p HD video is recorded in H.264 format.  The image quality is good, but the mono sound and the lack of zoom during recording count against the Ixus 120 IS; there is a digital zoom, but it rapidly deforms the image.