Canon Ixus 240 and 510 HS Get Wi-Fi!

Following Samsung and Panasonic, Canon is the latest camera-maker to release a couple of Wi-Fi compacts. The new models are both based on existing cameras—the Ixus 240 HS is basically an Ixus 125 HS with a new screen, while the Ixus 510 HS is exactly the same as the 500 HS.

Is Wi-Fi set to become the latest must-have function in a compact camera? Being slightly more cynical, we could suspect that the recent interest in Wi-Fi may come from the fact that a chip and software manufacturer has offered a ready-to-use solution to all the main camera brands. In any case, after years of rather timid attempts at adding wireless connectivity, anyone who's anyone in the camera market suddenly seems to be going Wi-Fi with solutions that are all very similar.

Like Panasonic and Samsung Wi-Fi compacts, the two models presented by Canon today allow users to send images to a computer or upload them to the Internet (Facebook, YouTube, e-mails etc.) and to share them with a smartphone or tablet (on iOS for the time being, but Android compatibility is in the pipeline). One slightly more original feature in these snappers, though, is that photos can be transferred between other compatible Canon Wi-Fi compacts. We'll be interested to see how user-friendly the functions are in practice, but from what we saw at the product presentation, the whole system looked very similar to the Panasonic FX90.

Both of these new cameras are based on the Canon compacts announced at CES 2012. The Ixus 240 HS is very similar to the Ixus 125 HS, with the same 24-120 mm zoom lens and 16-Megapixel BSI CMOS sensor. The design is a little different, a little squarer, no doubt making room for the 3.1-inch touchscreen—it's clearly not as stylish as the sleek little Ixus 220 HS, but it'll make entering the Wi-Fi password easier.

The Ixus 510 HS is actually a clone of the Ixus 500 HS (not to be confused with the Ixus 500, launched in 2004). It uses the same 10-Megapixel BSI CMOS sensor and 28-336 mm lens, and has the same compact boxy body and giant touchscreen. The only difference between the two models is added Wi-Fi in the Ixus 510 HS.