Canon's new IXUS 95 IS is a fresh new take on the compact point-and-shoot camera. It's available in 6 colors, but the 4 vibrant shades of blue, green, orange and pink are sure to find lots of takers among the fashion conscious. There's no plastic here; the all-metal construction is durable, and scratch and fingerprint resistant. Wish I could say the same for the chrome ring around the lens though.

Apart from the zany colors, it includes a whole lot of auto modes and under-the-hood tweaks to just give you better results. There is no manual mode, only a full auto mode and a Program mode that allows you to adjust white balance, overall exposure, ISO levels, metering mode, image size and color tone. Image stabilization is very welcome, and works in both photo and video modes. It's particularly useful in a compact, because the light weight
(120 grams in this case) causes you to shake the camera each time you press a button.

I really liked the inclusion of an optical viewfinder in such a small camera. Sure, the viewfinder is small and it only covers about 85% of the frame, but at least the option to use it is available in case you're shooting in bright sunlight or if the battery is running low. At ISO 80 and 100, the results are nothing short of breathtaking for such a small camera. At ISO 200, there is a substantial jump in the amount of image noise, and beyond that, it becomes quite unusable. Start-up, shut down and shot-to-shot recycle times are blazing quick. In bright outdoor shots at full 3x zoom, I noticed slight purple fringing towards the edge of the frame, but nothing too noticeable.

With a 4 GB Sandisk Extreme III card in the slot and the camera on continuous shooting mode, you can keep the shutter button pressed down, and the IXUS 95 IS will happily click away a frame every second without slowing down at all. I clicked over 100 photos without the camera slowing down, and had to release because my shutter finger got tired. Unlike the majority of point-and-shoots that are now made in China, the IXUS 95 IS is made in Japan. Call me old fashioned, but I'd take 'Made in Japan' any day over 'Made in China'.

Canon IXUS 95 IS Rs 12,595	Performance Coolness
Pros Awesome design, great snaps, good value Cons Too noisy at ISO200 and above Sold by Canon India, www.canon.co.in	Specs 10 MP CCD, 3x optical zoom (35 – 105 mm; 35mm equivalent), Digic IV with face detection, 2.5-inch LCD (230,000 dots), ISO 80 – 1600, SDHC slot, 640 x 480 video @ 30 fps, 1000 mAh Li-ion battery, 120 g Verdict

The 2.5-inch LCD is quite large considering the overall size of the camera, but it is surface mounted at the back. Which means that it will get scratched if placed on hard surfaces. I also didn't like that the focus and zoom motor is rather noisy. These minor quibbles aside, there's really not much I could find fault with.

Make no mistake, this is a camera meant for someone who likes to look stylish and just wants great shots with minimal effort, everytime!