I honestly don't know much about cameras, but I love this one. This camera has literally been all over the world with me and perfectly captures every moment. I've had it for about 2 1/2 years and it hasn't failed me yet. The pictures are phenomenal and unbelievably clear. The video sound is a little soft though. Unfortunately I've broken the screen twice. The first time Canon fixed it for free. I'm just ready for an upgrade and am awaiting the arival of my SD800.

I'm just gonna say that , "that is the camera"!!!
I have never seen anything near like it.
I had a Sony before and was a total garbage, most of the pictures were fuzzy ! I tought it was my camera that was defective, after seen some friend's sony cameras and after reading a lot of reviews, " I " (myself) think sony's cameras are really garbage, even the 2007 new ones.( just search for reveiews). And will never buy a sony again.

With this canon over 100 to 200 pictures I take during some parties, I get 1 or 2 fuzzy, while with the sony it was usually 80%. I caouldnt believe.

I have droped this camera thousand times on the floor AAAAAANNNNDDDD the most impossible I was pushed into a swimming pool with this camera in my pocket, and after opeing and drying it, still works perfect after more than one year. it's like a rock!

I have token more than 12000 pics during last 2 years, and I have just one thing to say... "I 'm glad having bought this Canon! "

I just love it! Now I am searching for a new camera to my sister, and, it will be a Canon! Don';t know witch one yet, but I already know the brand!!!

Hope everyone have a great experience with their cameras like I had!

Flash stopped working less than a month after buying, camera was sent to be repaired and fixed. A couple of months later the zoom stopped working again had to pay shipping to get repaired. Now a little over a year camera will not power on at all and is out of warr. My niece has same camera and the shutter button came off and was lost, Canon wants over a hundred dollars to replace it (10 cent part) her camera is now useless also and was used for less than a year.

Yes it is a great camera. I use it mostly to sell on line with, from little rings to furniture and the photos are great. On the plus side, this was a great camera to take on vaction. My daughter took over 300 photos one day at the lake. I did buy a bigger memory card which seems to never get full when the daughter takes it out for the day. The size is great, fits in most pockets esp. jeans. I love the fact that when with family at big gatherings, my camera lasts out the others as far as keeping power. I use it daily and only have to charge it about once a week, depending on how often I use it. Downloading photos to computer is very simple. If you want an easy pick and shoot camera with out having to think, this is it. I would love to get a second or third one for my daughter and boyfriend so they quit grabbing mine...

I own a digital Elph, which I purchased from Amazon 5 years ago. It has worked well and I was happy with it. My satisfaction with my older Elph prompted me to upgrade to the newer Canon Powershot SD200 Digital Elph in December of 2005. I figured that Canon would have made modest improvements over time. I do like the size and weight of the unit.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. Using the flash, the red eye is worse with this version, even with red eye reduction on. Sure you can slightly clean up the red eye image using software; however, that's a major hassle and most photos will leave the eye looking black.

The second issue is after owning this camera for 13 months, an E 18 error appeared on the digital screen. The screen remains black and the camera will not work. I thought I'd try a new battery but that did nothing.

I do not recommend this camera. Keep searching. I now see that other owners have had the E 18 problem. I'll research my options as this PowerShot SD200 Digital Elph is now out of warranty.

I love this camera. It is small, has all of the features I want, and has worked flawlessly. I liked it so much, I got it for my sister as a gift and she loves it as well. Hers has received A LOT more use and the switch that goes between playback/video/camera mode is getting a bit of wear (sometimes, the camera is confused what mode it is in), but that's the only issue -- and she sort of abuses her camera (no case, etc.), so I think that kind of result might be expected. Otherwise, this camera is great. If this camera died today, I'd buy it again but unfortunately I can't because they don't make 3.2mp models anymore :(

Great camera, takes wonderful shots of your memories without requiring a great detail of experience.

This product is great. I've compared it with much expensiver cameras, and the desing, material and pictures are really good, besides the price is very afordable.

I trully recomend it.

The camera takes wonderful pictures. I purchased two for my adult sons in December 2005. As of right now, both have broken view screens. This seems to be a major design problem for this camera.

Since the top reviewers on this product covered the camera fairly well I'll only add some points they didnt mention that I think should be addressed.

For almost two years now I have had my photos listed in the Customer Image section above to give people an idea of the quality of the pics.

The issues that I have had with the top reviewer are listed in the comment section nder his review.

Pros:
- Macro feature is pretty good for this type of camera. Snapshots of flowers provide exceptionally well detail.

- Vivid feature enables the colors to come out much more richer. This is great for taking some floral pics or especially when taking sunset shots.

- Night mode enables you to take some really cool pictures of a variety of things; fireworks, Las Vegas night life. Make sure to have a tripod and modify the shutter speed for some photos.

- Manual mode can allow you to control the shutter speed, color (b/w, vivid, sepia) and more.

- Video mode really comes in handy when you either left the video camera at home or decided to just use this as your video camera. It has built in sound as well. Different quality and sizes of video are available depending on the space on your SD card and if you plan to email the videos.

Cons:
- Red eye as a result of the bright flash is terrible. Almost every indoor flash picture comes out with too much red eye. The red eye feature simply doesnt work well enough. This is the main reason why I reduced the rating by two stars. My wife is so annoyed with the red eye results that she wants to get a new camera. So this is something to reall consider.

- No battery meter. You wont know that the camera is running low on battery until its about to die. You would have to remember to charge it after a lot of usage or bring a spare charged battery in case.

I too experienced the dreaded E18 error. This camera was never dropped and always traveled in a hard case.

I was told that I can send the camera to some place in IL for repair, but I need to find the warranty card.

I find it incredibly annoying that a consumer products company with the tenure of Canon would refuse to acknowledge an obvious bug in their camera, and force everyone to dig the warranty card out of the junk drawer. Nothing is more irritating than a company putting the burden of repair on a consumer when the defect is in the engineering.

It's not like I dropped the damn thing into a pitcher of beer (oh, memories of my old cellphone - *sniff*) or got thrown into a pool with it in my pocket (farewell, old camera).

In any case, I wouldn't buy this camera again due to the sheer number of people experiencing the E18 error.

For that matter, I may just avoid Canon entirely in the future.

This review was written only to tell everyone that the screen is very fragile.

I am an extremely careful person and have gone to great lengths to protect the camera. Unfortunately just last week, I became another one of the many disappointed customers to find a broken LCD screen on their SD200.

Be careful when buying.

I've had several small digital cameras in the past, but none compare to the Canon Powershot series in picture quality. This camera is perfect to carry in your pocket all the time.

The camera itself works very well, and I would recommend if it weren't for the notorious E18 error (search Google for it) - which occurred at a particularly unfortunate time for me. Canon charges $250 to fix the problem if it's out of warranty, and denies that there is a design flaw in the camera (which there is - thousands of people are experiencing it).

I had previous experience with canon digital cameras and after my old powershot S50's screen cracked, I thought, no big deal just buy another canon. Anyway, bought this camera (actually bought 2 - the other one I gave as a gift to my sister)and over past 6 months use here are my impressions:

Pros:
>great portable shooter for first timers
>intuitive controls, including easy video function
>great basic camera for getting 4x6 pics

Cons:
>LCD screen again cracked without explanation

The screen cracking again on this camera together with what happened to my SD50 leads me to believe that the LCD's on Canons are very fragile and you probably have to buy a hard case to enclose this camera to protect from possible damage. Given that cracked lcd's on digitals render them almost useless, a future improvement from Canon should include reinforcement of these screens or possibly use a sliding cover to protect them when not in use.

it is a great camera for
1. it's size
2. performace
3. price

It takes crisp pictures. I took lots of shots so far both in out door as well as indoor, it never disappointed me. Camera size never compromised with quality of pictures. Pictures always turned great. Thanks to canon Digic processor. This camera is very compact, in fact all this series of cameras, you can carry anywhere just like a cell phone. It fits in your shirt pocket as well. It comes with rechargeble battery, so saved little money for batteries. If one does not want long zooms, this would be the best buy.

I bought this camera for my girlfriend, and she's had it for about 4 months now. We had an issue with the actual button you press to take a picture falling off. We sent it back to Cannon and they repaired it for free under warantee. Since then the camera has been fine, until....a couple of days ago. Now the lens will not extend and makes a grinding sound when turned on. Needless to say the camera will be going back and hopefully repaired under warantee but this is just plain getting annoying. When the camera works its PERFECT - but all these little issues are really starting to make me wish I bought one of the higher end SD's like the 450.

I have owned SD200 for six months now and I am very happy with it. It is great value for money. It has all the features I wanted - small size, cheap, low pixelage (yes low pixelage!). The camera is very sleek and fits into any pocket (even a tight jeans pocket). That's a major plus point about it. It is 3.2 MP which is all I needed as I never take prints larger than postcard size. High MP cameras are recommended only if you plan to print large posters, if you are not going to do that, don't waste your money on 6+ MP cameras. It's photo quality is excellent for its price. Soon I am going to buy a digital SLR but that's not because I am not happy with this one. I am 100% satisfied with this camera. Small point and shoot cameras and bulky DSLRs have their own utilities and one can't be subsituted for the other.

One thing I like is that I can switch of the LCD screen and take photos using viewfinder, that saves a lot of battery! You can take a lot more photos with LCD switched off. Don't go for a camera that doesn't have a viewfinder or doesn't allow you to switch off LCD. Battery life is average, but when on trips I generally switch off LCD while taking dayshots. Then battery can last for the whole 3-4 day trip with 400+ photos without recharging the battery.

Pros -
-Very sleek
-Excellent picture quality for it's price
-Very low flash charging time
-Unlimited video shooting at decent resolution
-Cheap

Cons-
-Does not have bulb setting so you can't keep the shutter open for unlimited time for night shots.
-Doesn't use AA or AAA batteries (but that's not a biggie as long as you remember to charge it before heading on to your trip and take the charger with you).

The Canon SD200 goes everywhere in my wife's purse.

It takes great pictures, indoors and out. The only setting my wife messes with is flash. This camera is perfect for her.

The viewfinder is a plus as it enables her to steady the camera by holder her camera hand against her face. Using the viewfinder, rather than the LCD, extends battery life.

This camera is great for short videos of our granddaughter. With a little care, it is suitable for natural-light photos. It focuses in low light. Shutter response is good. Digital "Noise" is a bit better than what one should expect.

This is our 4th digital camera, and our favorite for casual use. It just works.

One of my best gifts for myself last Christmas!

A perfectly sized camera that goes everywhere, captures great images, and is priced well enough that you will take into all situations.

Only downside is the tradeoff of size versus handling. The smaller camera does require more dexterity to hold...a small price to pay to take anywhere.

View screen has not been a issue, as others have noted. I have dropped once while in Canon case. No adverse impact.

I hate to sound glowing and non-objective in a review, but I absolutely love this camera. I was hesitant to buy a Canon after my last Elph showed poor battery life and mediocre picture quality. Nonetheless, it was good ENOUGH to keep me in the family. This camera, however, is everything I could ever want in a camera. It is gorgeous, tiny, tough (I've dropped it a couple times accidentally), was easy to set up, and has all the features I could imagine wanting. I am a student, and I take pictures of charts and graphs in text books that look amazingly sharp (make sure to push the "close-up" button, it makes all the difference). The manual features are great for getting just the right look anywhere (another tip: I highly suggest taking many photos with the ISO set to 400 without a flash). The Photostitch software is really fun to play with if you enjoy photography at all (lets you piece pictures together to make a panarama). I can't comment on the main software program, because I plug my memory card straight into my computer without the camera, and I use Picassa software from Google (free, good program).

This camera is one of the best purchases I've ever made. I can't imagine needing another camera for a long, long time.

This was the first digital camera I ever owned- my dad bought it for my 21st birthday last year.

This camera was perfect for me, someone who just wanted a camera to take pictures of my friends and events in college. Unfortunately, the camera was dropped and the screen was cracked. The camera, however, continued to operate although I couldn't change any features. I used it right up until it got stolen recently.

Nevertheless, I love this camera and I am definitely planning on buying another one as soon as funds provide. But for those who just want a camera to take decent pictures and who want features that are easy to use and understand, this is the one to get!

This camera was purchased as a gift for my son last November. He had an error message that displayed when the camera lens would not close. I provided him with the purchase information and warranty card (which he left at home when he headed back to college)and he contacted Canon for service. By the time I spoke to him again, he had already shipped off the camera for service and received it back in 'good as new' condition. Total cost to him was less than $7 shipping.
I'm thinking that I might need to purchase the 2 year service plan Amazon offers with these. :-)

Love this little camera but the LCD cracked after less then 6 months of use as well. I thought one of my friends dropped it but it looks like a pretty common occurence. Maybe I'll get it serviced.

Either way, the quality of the pics is excellent and honestly, who needs 8 Megapixels anyway.

The LCD display failed after only 6 months. Up until then it was a great camera, but I am really disgusted with the poor quality that it would fail so soon.

I am really enjoying the camera. It's easy to use and I like that it is small but has a large viewing screen. Great camera for the price.

Bought two of these for my daughters. Pros: Takes excellent pictures; convenient size; easy to use; many feautures for the money; excellent value.

Cons: LCD cracked, not from dropping or abuse. A little research shows this is not uncommon for the SD200 or SD300. Sounds like defect to me. Will try to get it repaired because we like the camera, but I'm a bit wary now.

Wow. Where do I start?
Well first off, I got this as a X mas present. I popped in the included 16 mb card to start shooting. That small of a card goes into the "why even bother" department. It holds about eight high resolution jpeg images.
I got a kingston 512mb card as another present.
Have no doubts about buying this camera. Dont let the small megapixel count fool you into thinking its low grade.

Tips:
1. Unless you are totally new to cameras, shoot in manual mode. It gives you a lot more options.
2. Use a custom white balance. The auto white balance is okay, but not always correct.
3. Press the shutter halfway. The focusing will be done. Then push the button the rest of the way, and it will be faster. Better pictures!
4. DONT USE DIGITAL ZOOM! It may sound good, but it makes your pictures extremely fuzzy and awful.
5.For movies, shoot in Fast Frame Rate. 60 frames per second! The quality is unbelievable.
6. If you turn off the flash you may find that your pictures get fuzzy. Try turning up the ISO. If its still fuzzy get a tripod.

All in all this is the best compact digital I've used.

I have been using this camera for over a year now and have taken it with me on many travels to other countries. I have been very happy with the picture quality and really like this camera. The battery life is excellent and this is an easy camera to travel with (I had no problems with international adaptors, etc). There is some difficulty shooting in bright light settings and the red eye function doesn't work well (although easily correctable with the software). I would definitely recommend this as I great point and shoot camera.

I've had the camera for 11 months taken hundreds of wonderful pictures. Then one day the camera was in my daughters purse and the LCD suddently appeard broken (no physical sign of abuse) but it had turned white with purple feathering on the screen (internal damage of some sort). I read about others having difficulties with service of LCD's from Canon so I thought I share mine recent experience.

First I want to say that Canon was EXCELLENT about handling the return/repair. I called their service center and they told me where to send it, never was a cost mentioned. Sent camera w/store receipt and warranty card; 7 days later had letter from Canon stating camera had been received and their diagnosis was a cracked LCD (caused by pressure). The very next day I had camera delivered at my door by Fed-Ex, only 8 days after I'd sent it to them. I could not be happier with their service. Maybe they've heard and recognize a screen problem and that are now dealing with it in the professional manner the should have originally.

In any case, have my wonderful little camera back, good as new. Happy with Canon and their service/support. Now wanting the sweet SD550.

I love this camera. I've owned several point and shoot digital cameras, and this is the best of the bunch. Everything about it is top notch except for it's red eye reduction. Red eye is almost always present. It's not that big of a deal for me as I can remove that with software fairly easily, but it's worth mentioning because it is a major problem. Other than that, this camera out performs every other mini digital camera I've owned.

Had the camera for 2 weeks and the LCD is already broken....
Great job Canon!

Very small and easy to use snapshot camera.
I like the LCD screen and lots of manual functions, too.
The automatic controls are a bit off when taking pictures in the dark and also in moving vehicles, but once you switch it to manual, then you can take nice pictures in all conditions.

For some reason, it does eat up battery. I find myself using up a battery with one days picture taking. Maybe turning it on and off drains power because I didn't even come close to the number of pictures taken for a full battery. More like half.

I brought it on my Peru trip and went backpacking with it. It was awesome!

Excellent camera from the price. Highly recommended for a bargain priced camera, but it has all the features of its more expensive brethen.

If you are looking for your first digital camera, the SD 200 is the one to go for.
I got mine for $175 in November 2005. At that price its a steal.
The main advantage is the small form factor, which means you can carry the camera easily in your jeans or shirt pocket rather than buy a special camera pouch or bag.