Canon PowerShot N review

The PowerShot N is the strangest looking camera we’ve seen in a long time. There’s an 8x zoom lens on the front, a 2.8in touchscreen on the back and very little else. There are buttons on the side for power, playback and Wi-Fi, plus a mode switch, but no sign of a shutter button or zoom lever.

These key functions are built into the metal rings that encircle the lens. Zooming is achieved by twisting, and pushing the ring up or down captures a photo. The idea is that, like an iPad, there’s no right or wrong way to hold this camera. The screen tilts up to allow shooting from waist height. If you want to shoot with the camera held above your head, just turn it upside down – the zoom and shutter release controls will work in exactly the same way. They fall comfortably under the fingers in portrait orientation too, although the screen’s single-axis hinge isn’t any help here.

The design is certainly innovative, but more conventional controls and a screen that tilts both up and down would have achieved roughly the same result. Then again, articulated screens are rare on ultra-compact cameras, and they’re always extremely welcome.

The minimal design and integrated Wi-Fi also point towards another form of innovation. Wi-Fi cameras let users take photos with a camera and edit and share them on a smartphone a few seconds later. The PowerShot N’s design seems to fully embrace this concept, stripping the camera down to its essential components, including a relatively small 2.8in screen for composing shots, on the basis that they’re more likely to be viewed on a smartphone.

It’s a compelling idea, but Canon’s Wi-Fi implementation is a limiting factor. Photos and videos are transferred on demand, with browsing either on the camera or smartphone app (available for iOS and Android). However, there’s no option to transfer photos automatically as soon as they’re captured, which would have given much tighter integration between camera and smartphone. There’s no remote shooting function either, and the app-based GPS tagging function is a little clumsy. The 200-shot battery life is another worry. This camera might not last a full day’s use if the Wi-Fi radio is used extensively.

IMAGE QUALITY

Despite these misgivings, the PowerShot N is a capable compact camera. The touchscreen interface is straightforward and effective, and provides a spot focus function that’s absent from most Canon compacts. It appears to use the same sensor and image-processing engine as the Canon Ixus 255 HS, which helped it to deliver remarkably low noise in photos. Details in brightly lit shots were smooth and natural, and low-light photos were perfectly respectable – something few compact cameras can claim. The lens wasn’t quite as sharp towards the edges of the frame, though, and telephoto shots were a little soft, too. The Ixus 255 HS’s 10x zoom lens gave better results.

There’s lots of definition in these subtle, shady textures – this is about as good as ultra-compact cameras get

Focus isn’t as sharp at the edges of frames as it is in the middle

Focus appears to be slightly soft at the long end of the zoom, too

Indoor image quality is excellent, thanks to the low noise from the sensor

Image quality suffers after zooming in in low light, but it’s still good enough for sharing online

The lack of a proper flash is a concern, though. The LED that passes for a flash is feeble, with a quoted range of 90cm. A powerful flash should be something that dedicated cameras offer over and above a smartphone’s camera, but not here. The PowerShot N’s low-light image quality is pretty good without it but we’d still like to have the option. An HDMI output is notably absent, too, and the lack of a manual white balance option will be frustrating for some people. Performance could be better, taking two seconds between shots in our tests. The continuous mode trundled along at 2fps. The video mode gave great results, with crisp detail and smooth, silent focusing and zooming. The arbitrary 10-minute clip limit is a bit annoying, though.

We’re always up for a quirky design, and while the PowerShot N isn’t as radical as it might appear, the articulated screen is extremely useful. Image quality is excellent, but most of the differences to the Ixus 255 HS don’t lie in its favour. The Ixus has a proper flash, HDMI, a slightly bigger zoom and sharper focus, and it currently costs around £70 less. We like the PowerShot N, but it’ll need to fall to under £200 before we’d be tempted to buy one.