The A470 is one of the smallest and cheapest point-and-shoots in Canon's PowerShot line. Do its pictures transcend its price?
Review summary of the Canon PowerShot A470:
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 The Canon PowerShot A470 only offers 7-megapixels and 3.4x zoom, but its updated style and superb image-quality arguably make it a better deal than 8-megapixel PowerShots costing $20-$50 more. If you're looking for image quality above all else, the A470 is the PowerShot lineup's sweet spot. Release: March 2008. Price: $110.
Pros: Excellent image-quality, cool design, smooth interface, broad ISO range.
Cons: Slow image-processing, no manual mode.
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Full review of the Canon PowerShot A470:
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Design - Very good
The PowerShot A470 is a slick-looking camera. From the colored accent running down its midsection to its wide orientation and silver gleam, this offering is certainly snazzier than most other entries in the PowerShot "A" line. It seems the further a camera is positioned from the prosumer models, the more liberal Canon becomes with their designs, and to good ends.
The top of the body houses the power and shutter-release buttons, and, keeping with the minimalistic layout, the back simply features three buttons, a four-way controller, and Canon's typical mode-wheel. To the left is the 2.5 inch LCD viewfinder, a size made possible thanks to the absence of a pinhole viewfinder, a needless fixture on most other PowerShot A variations.
In terms of handling, the A470 shares the PowerShot A line's tendency towards bulkiness, particularly in terms of depth, and it has a certain plastic lightness to it. Otherwise the camera feels great, and unlike the higher-end PowerShot A cameras, it isn't burdened with a dumpy, chintzy-looking style.
Features - Good
Contrasting the upper-end PowerShots A devices, the A470 has been downgraded to a 7-megapixel sensor (from 8) and a 3.4x optical zoom (down from 4x). Also, unlike the IS models, the camera lacks any form of image stabilization.
Otherwise the A470 continues the PowerShot trend of emphasizing basic usability over the nouveau features touted by other point-and-shoot manufactures. There is basic face-detection and red-eye removal, but nothing along the lines of, say, Wi-Fi connectivity or smile-detection. This may give the impression that the A470 is functionally sparse, but in fact we appreciated Canon's efforts to wed good image-quality with a streamlined feature-set.
The camera's ISO range is excellent – from 80 to 1600 – and noise is well-managed up until 800, but at 1600 it becomes unsurprisingly distractive. Still, perhaps due to squeezing fewer pixels onto the same surface-area (more on that later), noise is overall not as dense as on the more expensive, 8-megapixel PowerShot A models, and even ISO-1600 is at least usable.
Unfortunately, the A470 is every bit as slow as its kin. The camera takes over a second to process one image in standard mode, and the burst mode only slightly ameliorates this by processing images in a little under one second. At the very least, the burst mode is continuous and operates until the memory card is full.
Interface / Software - Very good
The buttons have been rearranged, but the interface otherwise remains the same as on other PowerShot A cameras, right down to Canon's classic mode-wheel (though, due to a reduction in features, only half of the notches on the wheel are actually used). Otherwise the zoom-control has been moved from a twist-toggle around the shutter-release to the up/down buttons on the four-way controller, and while we preferred the shutter/zoom combo on the more expensive PowerShot A590, this setup was still perfectly usable.
The menu is just as intuitive and navigable as other PowerShot A models. The A470 does lack a wheel-dial as seen on other manufacturer's point-and-shoots, but the four-way controller easily suffices, and all important functions are immediately accessible with one button-press. Furthermore, macro and flash settings are helpfully selectable via shortcuts.
Canon has included version 34.0 of their "Solutions Disk" software, which is comprised of a library & editing utility, a panorama-assist utility, and finally a transfer utility that can also remotely control a connected camera. As always, Canon's software is solid and easy to use, whether for quick touch-ups or to send out prints.
Image quality - Excellent
The A470 only offers 7-megapixels of resolution, yet it produces images that are arguably cleaner, less distorted, and perceptively sharper than some of its higher-resolution superiors, undoubtedly because its larger pixels result in less oversharpening and better noise-distribution. Briefly, the A470 has 7-megapixels on a 1/2.5" sensor; compared to the PowerShot A580, which has 8-megapixels, also on a 1/2.5" sensor, the A470 offers fewer pixels, but the pixels themselves take up more physical space. Suffice to say that the comparatively larger pixels of the A470 grants it both higher photon-sensitivity and a broader dynamic range than its more expensive brethren.
Edge test
The A470 performs very well in this test for edge-definition. Hardly any fringing or haloing is visible, and edges are clean and distinct. Furthermore, while shadow detail is understandably low in such a high-contrast situation, there is nonetheless very little noise either in the large patches of white in the sky or in the silhouette of the tree. All in all, this is an excellent result.
Scene test
The A470 continues its winning streak with this scene sample. Edges remain sharp but clean, color is well rendered, and noise is present in shadowy areas but appreciably diffuse. The only real drawback here is the notable blue-fringing along hard edges in the upper third of the image, but otherwise this too is an impressive performance.
Flash test
The A470's flash, as seen in this sample, is a bit harsh, as it lacks either a soft/diffuse mode or variable intensity. Also, while the lighting conditions for this shot were already a tad ‘icy,' the color temperature in this image is still slightly high. However, the image-sensor's performance continues to shine, as the noise in the background is finely granulated and the leaves are crisply detailed.
Macro test
The A470 did relatively well in this macro-test, as the center of the image is sharply detailed. Nevertheless, its macro performance isn't quite as consummate as normal-range performance, as evidenced by the loss of focus in the sides and corners of the photo.
Price and availability
The Canon PowerShot A470 will start selling for $110 () in March 2008.
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