Digital Home Thoughts: DCRP Reviews the Canon PowerShot TX1

"The PowerShot TX1 is Canon's first venture into camera/camcorder hybrid territory, and the results are mixed. They've created a camera that's big on style and features, but lacking in terms of ergonomics, flash strength, movie recording times, and battery life. The TX1 also has to overcome another issue, and that's its price. It's hard to justify paying $500 for style, when Canon's own PowerShot S3 and Panasonic's DMC-TZ3 offer many of the same features (and more, in some areas) for $170 less. The TX1 certainly isn't a bad camera -- it's just hard for me to jump up and down about something that isn't quite worth its price premium. The TX1 is an ultra-compact ultra zoom camera that looks like a cross between a vertically-oriented camcorder and a Digital ELPH. It's small -- too small in my opinion -- and made almost entirely of metal. The one big weak spot on the camera is the plastic door over the battery compartment, which is really flimsy considering the price of the TX1."



When we first posted about this camera, there was a lot of excitement - and now we have the first review. I have to admit, when I had read the first descriptions of this camera I was thinking it was a 50/50 hybrid between camera and video camera, but after reading the review it seems like it's more of an 80/20 split, acting mostly as a camera. I downloaded the 51 MB sample AVI file, and while the 1280 x 720 video looked good, it didn't look as good as I was hoping it would. Like all hybrid devices, there are compromises you need to make - does the TX1 still appeal to you?