Canon USA announced the Canon PowerShot A510 yesterday as a replacement for the inexpensive PowerShot A75 that has been one of the most popular digital cameras at Amazon.com for most of the last year. The A75 has been a good performer in the 3.2-megapixel range and the A510 seeks to build on that reputation with a few key enhancements:
- 4x optical zoom, instead of 3x,
- MMC memory cards, instead of Compact Flash Type 1,
- requires 2 AA batteries instead of four,
- slight decrease in overall size and probably a noticeable difference in weight when loaded with batteries.
When I first read about this camera, I thought that it didn’t make sense to switch media (from CF to MMC) in an upgrade to the least expensive member of the PowerShot A product line. It made more sense when I realized that this is probably the key to being able to run the PowerShot A510 on half as many batteries. I would still recommend using NiMH rechargeable AA’s, but cutting the number needed to run the camera in half still represents a measureable savings after a year of use. [ via Gizmodo ]