Canon's PowerShot A550 is a simple, inexpensive 7-megapixel camera, and that's all it wants to be. While it has some nice features, it doesn't offer any outstanding, unique aspects that put it above any other camera in the field, and that's just fine. Good performance and solid images are all a camera needs to succeed, and the A550 delivers just that.
Though not quite small enough to slip into your jeans, the A550 is still comfortably compact. At 160 grams and 43mm thick, the camera can fit easily into most jacket pockets and bags. The camera's body has an L-shaped design found on most of Canon's PowerShot A series, giving it a generous grip. The buttons are large and comfortable, and they're laid out logically along the back and the top of the camera.
The A550 is a fairly nondescript camera, with few outstanding or unusual features. Its most notable attribute is its 35mm-to-140mm-equivalent 4X zoom lens, which gives it just a bit more range than the 3X lenses typical of most budget cameras. It has a smaller-than-usual 2-inch LCD screen that is augmented by an optical viewfinder for shooting in dim light. Besides those features, the A550 has the standard handful of scene presets and image adjustment settings, including a 30fps VGA (640x480) movie mode and a pleasantly unexpected 60fps QVGA (320x240) high-speed movie mode. Finally, like most Canon PowerShot A-series cameras, the A550 conveniently takes AA batteries.
The A550 performed well in almost all of our Labs' tests. After its brisk start-up time of 1.5 seconds, we could snap a shot once every 1.7 seconds, a great improvement over previous PowerShot A5x0 cameras. Unfortunately, with the onboard flash enabled, that time more than tripled to 4.9 seconds per shot. The camera's shutter was responsive, lagging less than 0.5 seconds with our high-contrast target and a modest 1.2 seconds with our low-contrast target. Burst mode was also pleasantly fast, managing 51 full-resolution shots in 31.4 seconds for a rate of 1.6 frames per second.
Photos looked pretty good, though they're marred by overprocessing and fringing in spots. Colours reproduce well, though indoor photos shot with automatic white balance come out very yellow, a common problem for most snapshot cameras. Noise is low up to ISO 400 sensitivity, where a fine grain starts to appear. Images are predictably noisy at ISO 800 sensitivity, with speckling damaging fine details and softening colours. ISO 800 is usually reserved for low-light and high-speed shooting, and everyday snapshots shouldn't have many problems.
With quick performance and decent photos, the Canon PowerShot A550 is a solid budget camera. It doesn't have many special features and it's not particularly small or light, but it's a strong choice if you don't want to spend a lot for your snapshots.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
 |
Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
Like this article? Click below to send it to your mobile for free!
Jason
11/08/2008, 11:04 PM
rating
7/10
I read many digital cameras reviews. And many digital cameras i like and want to
buy. In these cameras list one is sony cameras and another is canon cameras. Canon cameras are most
powerful and brilliant cameras in photography industry. These are elegant and reliable. So i prefer all to use this camera.
Pros: Manual exposure controls.
Doubles as portable media player
Voice recorder
Built-in photo frames
Zippy performance.
Cons: Poor continuous shooting performance
No battery indication until power is almost used up
Report offensive comment
Nadmax
15/06/2008, 04:53 PM
rating
9/10
One of the better compact cameras for the price.
Pros: Good pictures, good 4x zoom, great pricing, quick responses.
Cons: Smaller LCD screen.
Report offensive comment
Andrew
13/04/2008, 08:32 PM
rating
8/10
A brilliant camera for it's price. Images are really nice and well worth the money. Canon is definitely the Digital Camera market.
Pros: Quality images, cheap, easy use and easy interface
Cons: Camera a little large, graining, blur occurs quite often and images take a very very long time after flash.
Report offensive comment
Super Guy
05/03/2008, 05:27 PM
rating
8/10
I have several digital cameras and keep coming back to the canon for it simplicity and battery life. Turning off the LCD and using the view finder meant a single set of batteries lasted through a 3 week family holiday and are still going strong. Maybe im old fashion but Ive never really found using an LCD for framing a shot easy, particularly in bright sunlight. with most other camera brands only providing an LCD veiw finder the Canon is a standout.
Pros: Simple and does the job in most situations. Good battery life
Cons: Not for those wanting high end features or picture quality - hey what didi you expect at this price!
Report offensive comment
Tahir
24/12/2007, 01:09 PM
rating
8/10
pretty good performance given the current price tag.
Pros: High quality pictures, value for money, good handling & grip
Cons: Slightly large, flash hungry for batteries.
Report offensive comment
Tahir
24/12/2007, 01:08 PM
rating
8/10
pretty good performance given the current price tag.
Pros: High quality pictures, value for money, good handling & grip
Cons: Slightly large, flash hungry for batteries.
Report offensive comment
ed
19/11/2007, 11:07 AM
rating
3/10
possibly the worst camera i hav ever used
quality is extremely poor, all photos came out blurry. esp for concerts (my positioning was good)
Report offensive comment
ed
15/09/2007, 09:21 AM
rating
9/10
best bang for buck...well worth the money.very close to cameras 3 times the price
Pros: evrything for dollar is great
Cons: canon can give us 2.5 inch brighter lcd..maybe manual controls loike A60,A70 etc
Report offensive comment