Product Review - Canon A3200IS

I recently purchased a digital camera for my dad, as a gift. This being the first digital camera at home, i decided to personally select the camera that would be the best investment for a long term.

I checked out a lot of camera's at the Croma store in East of Kailash. Some friends had suggested Sony, and some had suggested Canon, so i decided to stay within the two. My alloted budget was Rs7500.And my demand - a camera with 10+megapixels,around 4-5x optical zoom, HD(preferably full 1080p) and an easy UI..

The best in the range was this Canon A3200IS. I took a whole 3 hours at Croma to finalize on this camera. Tested the camera's quite in detail. The following was the result.

In the range of around Rs7500-8000, there were two camera's with the desired config - an Olympus and a Canon. Canon A3200IS was priced at Rs7564, whereas Olympus was priced at Rs7800(roughly, don't remember the exact figure, but was Rs78xx). The Olympus one was a full HD, and had a better lighting detection, whereas the Olympus one was a 720p, but what i've learned from experience is that features matter less unless they're implemented flawlessly. So, decided to use all these camera's on full resolution, with full optical zoom.

Here, the Canon one scored better. Pictures were crystal clear. The flash firing was a bit irritating, especially when it fired in medium lightning where even no flash could have done. But then, in the live mode, you can set flash off, and everything would be done. On zooming the pictures, Olympus gave a bit blurry whereas Canon was perfect. In Video mode, both Canon and Olympus did good, but in A3200IS the images got blurred on recording in HD and zooming more than 3x. Olympus was better here.

But the more important thing was zooming, flash and pixel rate. Olympus forces us to go in for full HD and full 14Mp, even when we do not want that. This can be very irritating. For example, if i need a picture for my facebook display, why the hell would i need a 14MP resolution picture, it would firstly take sometime to upload the picture, secondly i'll be wasting time and money over broadband charges, and thirdly, resizing in facebook would eat my brains. And so is for other photo sharing sites.

Also, Canon has a better after-sales network than Olympus in Delhi and NCR, this is something i cannot ignore. I cannot roam around the NCR just for some service centre. Already going to the Nehru place service centre of Samsung seems irritating.

I'm uploading two photos for a better first hand experience. I tried uploading video's, but uploading 26Mb didn't seem possible for the internet connection to handle.

In one of the pictures, you can see my whole computer setup. The computer, that hadn't been cleaned for sometime(as i was out on a vacation and recently came back) seemed more dusty than it actually is. In fact, dirt from many places hidden from the eye seemed visible(all thanx to the neon flash). So no problems in night shooting. In the picture, just select original size, have a look at the computer CPU cabinet .There's a sticker from the airport luggage division. Just have a look at it. You'll understand how the performance of the camera is.




In the other picture, i've pictured my monitor at night without the flash, or any artificial lightning. My computer's home screen background being black, was perfectly visible and readable. Infact, nearby panel buttons and their labels were easily readable too in the photo. The camera seemed good.

Another good point with Canon was that it had a two year warranty on its product, whereas Olympus had only a 1 year warranty. Liquid damage is not covered in the warranties of both. But anyways, 2 is better than 1. That cuts the need of additional warranties. I was asked by the Croma executive to purchase another two year warranty for Rs350, which i declined. Certainly two years are enough for the camera warranty. Canon does good work there.

Being under independence sale, Croma sold me Canon A3200IS for Rs7564. The prices were a hundred more, but managed to bargain hundred more bucks :) .

My personal review - 4 out of 5. Could have been better, but still gets the value for money tag. Though i would mention that some would be tempted to give it 4.5 out of 5 . These many features, plus under Rs7600, plus HD, plus Canon seems to be a great combination at this price point.