Sometimes the simple things in life are all you want or need, and if you want an easy-to-use compact that will deliver crisp 5x7in prints with minimal fuss Canon’s PowerShot A460 could be for you. It may only have 5MP, but as we’ve said before, fewer ‘good’ pixels can beat twice as many ‘bad’ ones in the image quality stakes.

Throw in a 38-152mm equivalent zoom, a dozen preset shooting modes (plus ‘manual’ for a modicum of control) and a maximum ISO of 400 and the A460 looks good for a point-and-shooter.

A choice of three colours (red, blue and silver) adds panache, and while this isn’t the slimmest of cameras it’s comfortable enough to hold, with a fuss-free control layout. Compared to its predecessor, the LCD screen has ‘grown’ from 1.8in to 2.0in, but the sub-100K pixel resolution is disappointing, making the optical viewfinder a welcome addition. The A460 has a responsive five-point AF system, fast zooming action and a DIGIC II processor that whisks your images to the SD card with little delay. In use, there’s not much to complain about, especially given the ‘entry level’ price tag.

Image Quality
Putting Canon’s PowerShot ‘know-how’ into the entry-level A460 means you get well-exposed, correctly focused, generally colour-accurate images frame after frame. This makes it a great camera if you want to point, shoot, and print your pictures without ‘messing about’ on a PC. The 5mp sensor is great for making prints up to 5x7in and for viewing images on screen.