Canon Powershot TX1

The stereo mic at the back of the screen did little to actually separate sounds into two stereo channels, but the quality was very good nonetheless. In fact, if it's HD video you're mainly interested in, the TX1 is a pretty decent choice for its price.

But as a regular digital camera that's meant for shooting still images, the TX1 fails to impress!

First off, the autofocus is ridiculously out of place, with the edges completely blurring out even when shooting on a wider aperture. In portrait shots the camera refuses to focus on more than a single person, which makes a group photo pretty much pointless. And on the focused areas, the sharpness levels don't impress too much.

The colors gave little to complain about though, as they were perfectly reproduced with just the right amount of saturation. Camera speeds were pretty good too, with just under 2 seconds needed to start up and the same time to shut down. Even the shot-to-shot time was under 2 seconds without flash.

Now the reason I'm stumped about these issues with image sharpness and focusing is that I've used other cameras that have the same DIGIC III image processor that's in this camera; yet the image quality is nowhere close to those. Maybe it's the piece we got for review, but I can't give it the benefit of the doubt in that case.

Though the camera has a lot of appealing features, such as its unique design and HD video recording, it just isn't good value at Rs 20,990.

Specifications