Canon PowerShot S100

The Canon PowerShot S100 is the follow-up to the popular S95, a camera that we liked enough to award our Editors' Choice. Although it's priced slightly higher, the 12-megapixel S100 improves on the S95 in many ways.

The lens covers a 24-105mm (35mm equivalent) field of view, which is a 5x zoom range. At the wide end it opens up to f/2, which lets quite a bit of light in, but the aperture narrows to f/5.9 at the telephoto end of its zoom.

Our standard test scene as recorded by the lens of the PowerShot S100.

This 100 percent crop shows you the level of detail that you can expect from images captured by the S100.

The 3-inch LCD is packed with 460k dots, and may be the only disappointing aspect of the S100's design. Even though it is as crisp and bright as the screen found on the S95, it is no longer the best you'll find on a point-and-shoot.

At 2.3 by 3.9 by 1.1 inches (HWD) and 7 ounces, the S100 is a bit larger and heavier than competing compact cameras, such as Canon's own 2.2-by-3.8-by-0.9-inch, 4.9 ounce PowerShot Elph 310 HS.

The S100 performed admirably in performance tests. The camera takes 2.3 seconds to start up and grab a shot, and can capture another photo every half second in continuous shooting mode. Its shutter lag is only 0.3 second, which is an excellent score for a camera that you can slide into your pocket.

The Canon PowerShot S100 takes everything the S95 did right and improves on it. Because of its excellent performance, well-rounded feature set, and relatively modest price, the S100 easily earns our Editors' Choice award for high-end compact cameras.