Strengths: 7.1 Megapixel, Image stabilizer, 4x optical zoom, red eye reduction, compact size, large lcd screen, viewfinder, ease of use

Weaknesses: No comfortable place to "rest" your thumb when taking a picture.

Summary: This digital camera is an excellent choice for the new user or even for the advanced user with it's many great features for a price under $200. Canon has a great reputation and reliability according to Consumer Reports. The image stabilizer feature is without a doubt the best feature of this camera so your "once in a lifetime" shots will come out clear and crisp.

Strengths: Small Size, great photos, good in low light, battery length, price.

Weaknesses: Had to read a large manual to understand how all the menu functions worked.

Summary: This is the second digital camera that I have owned and I had been thinking of getting a Canon for some time. Many of my friends use Canons and I have always been very impressed with the results. I chose this camera because it had lots of features and wasn't that much larger than the SD series.Since getting it, I have been very impressed with it. The camera turns on very quickly taking only about 1 second to start up. It takes pictures very fast and stores them quickly too (although I did also purchase a high speed SD card). The color of the pictures is fantastic and the camera seems to work very well in low light.About the only thing I don't like about this camera is the time that it took me to work out how all the features worked. The manual is quite chunky and can be a litttle difficult to read at times. But overall, this is a fantastic camera and well worth the money.

Strengths: Small size w/ AA batteries; great pictures; easy to use; gives full control of every setting if you want it; management software stores pix as jpg in directories

Weaknesses: Included memory card a joke; battery compartment a little flimsy; wish it had more zoom; management software has some usability issues

Summary: I've been using this camera for more than 2 months and taken over 1500 shots with it. I am a power user, but not a professional photographer. This little camera is fantastic. Takes great pix as a point and shoot, and allows me to force it to take great special shots (mostly night pix). It gave me some great pictures of lightning using the "fireworks" mode and a tripod. Digic III and IS do an incredible job getting a sharp focus, fast power-up, and preserving battery life. I have shot over 700 pix (no flash) on two 2500mAh rechargeables, but I usually get about 300 pix/charge. They also optimized the digital zoom for two hard settings (1.5x and 1.9x) rather than having it vary all the time (although it can still vary if you really want that). Hard setting the digital zoom makes the pictures stay nice and crisp in spite of the digital zoom. Normally I would say that a digital zoom is a waste, but not on this camera when it is hard set.The high ISO is a come-on. Anything above 400ISO is too grainy to be acceptable for me. I've been able to overcome those issues using aperture, shutter speed, and white balance adjustments. Of course, this is a non-issue if you are just shooting everything auto.Make sure you get a high speed memory card to get the best performance (that's kinda buried in the manual). It makes a difference when shooting pictures in rapid succession or shooting any video. The video is great for 640x480/320x240 and the mic does a great job picking up sound. Video format is avi.The ZoomBrowser EX software handles pictures correctly by dumping them into a directory structure in jpg format. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow standard Windows keyboard navigation like arrows, tab, and shift. Stitch Assist (for panoramics) is good enough for basic use, but the user interface is a clumsy 1,2,3 step process. It doesn't support arrows, tab, and shift navigation either.

Strengths: Compact lightweight body, large LCD window, image stabilaization features, and image quality.

Weaknesses: Low-capacity SD card.

Summary: It's hard to believe something so compact and lightweight can do what the A570is is capable of. The large bright LCD is easy to see even in direct sunlight plus an optical viewfinder is included as well. I've mainly been using "auto" settings and both indoor and outdoor pictures are excellent. Image stabilization really makes a difference for longer/wider ranges. Rechargable AA batteries last a long time and it's easy to carry a spare set in the case although they haven't been needed yet. The included SD memory card is only 16MB so I purchased a larger memory card for room to store movies. Sound and image quality on videos is as impressive as still photos. I'm very happy with this camera and would highly recommend it to family and friends.

Strengths: AA batteries is big + .The SD cards is another big plus. In additional, this camera boost manual functions. You can change certain settings. It also has an optical view finder.

Weaknesses: The design. To switch for shooting mode, it is annoying to shift the button on the far upper right corner. When I was recording a short clip, I hear weird cluttering sounds as I replay it.

Summary: Overall, the camera is good, but I personally regret buying this instead of the Canon a710. I think I would have fare more better with more zoom than higher iso. I think the only difference between the Canon a710 is that Canon a570 has more iso and less zoom. Despite the fact that Canon a570 has a higher iso range than Canon a710, I don't see much of a difference in picture quality. I didn't think it was necessary to create a button for printing. I thought that was a waste and nuisance. Like the Canon a710, I believe you can change the lens. This is one of the reason why I liked it. In addition, Canon a570 is a newer model compare to Canon a710.