Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, a confession. I do own this camera, but purchased it elsewhere because it was available prior to Amazon's availability date. I won't repeat much of what's already been said, but hopefully amplify a little. There's much to like about this camera: long 30x zoom, quick and accurate focus, true HD video, relatively good build quality. I concur with the majority of the pros I've seen in other reviews, but would offer a couple of cons that may be important to some potential buyers: - TOKEN GRIP: While I'm sure the grip on this camera is better than the one on its predecessors, it's still hardly a grip. I've come close to dropping the camera a couple of times and always keep the strap around my wrist. In efforts to make the camera as small as possible, Canon has offered not much more than a token bump in the case. My old A650's grip is much better and, frankly, while it's physically larger, I don't find it unwieldy at all. - STIFF MODE SELECTION DIAL: Don't think for a minute that you can change the mode without getting a good grip on the camera first and using both your thumb and forefinger to rotate the dial. It's stiffer than all get-out, small, and feels plasticky compared to every other Canon I've owned, and I've owned several. - SUPER FINE RESOLUTION: Not available in Auto. What??!?! Not that going to Program mode in order to select it is the end of the world, but why, Canon, why? I see a significant difference in quality in many shots between the fine resolution provided in Auto mode and the Super Fine resolution that can be chosen in Program mode. - FLASH RECOVERY TIMES: Still a wait-and-see, but they were pretty long on first powering up the camera, occasionally 3 seconds of seeing "Busy" on the screen between shots. Flash is not this camera's strong suit in any case. I have noticed fewer problems after shooting with the camera for several days, but remain leery. - MANUAL FLASH SELECTION: Not only must you pop up the flash manually, but it's a tiny, inconvenient switch on the side where your hand will never naturally land. I have lost more than a few shots fumbling to get the darn thing open! - BATTERY LIFE: It's relatively, well, miserable. I have yet to swap in the 1700 mAh spares I purchased, but hope they add a few exposures to what the supplied battery can provide. With an extra set of lithium AAs, my A650 will get about 1,300 shots at high (12 mp), super fine resolution, and I can shoot nearly that in a day away from stores where batteries can be purchased or recharged. I predict I'm looking at perhaps no more than 60% of that with the Canon battery and two fully-charged, higher capacity spares. - OVERLY AGRESSIVE NOISE REDUCTION: I'd much rather do the retouching on my computer and be selective about how much to apply, and where. Sometimes detail with noise is more palatable than loss of detail and less noise. None of these is a show-stopper for me, and there is indeed a lot to like, but I can't call this the best camera ever made. My A650 takes better pictures a significant percentage of the time and will continue to be in my camera bag until it eventually gives up the ghost. I had a 40D for a while with an L glass lens and it took significantly better pictures than either this camera or the A650, but lugging around a $3,000 brick didn't match my lifestyle. Choosing the SX700 HS is, I think, more about matching your lifestyle than it is about getting the best images for the buck. UPDATE April 17, 2014: On first unpacking this camera and inserting the charged Canon battery, I immediately began to take flash photos. To my dismay, it took about 3 seconds before the "Busy" message disappeared from the screen and I was able to shoot the next shot. In an extended conversation with a very pleasant and helpful support tech at Canon, she ultimately found a new SX700 HS in the box, inserted a freshly charged battery, took a flash picture and sure enough, reported that it took nearly 5 seconds for the "Busy" message to disappear and the camera to be ready to take the next shot. Something inside the camera's flash mechanism needs an initial shot of juice before the flash works as expected. Perhaps if one takes just available light shots for several hours before using the flash this'll happen quietly and they'll never notice it. But if you take flash pictures straight out of the box, at least, be prepared for, but not alarmed by, this disconcerting behavior. Good news is, the problem does go away fairly quickly, and my camera no longer exhibits this problem. UPDATE May 17, 2014: I have had no problems at all with lengthy "Busy" messages since the initial out-of-the-box experience. Also, to those aware of the SX280's battery issues with video, I can report that I didn't get much more than 5-6 minutes of HD video on my SX700 HS with the stock battery before the low battery indicator started flashing, although I had previously taken perhaps 30 still shots without flash, with the camera on and ready to shoot a good chunk of the time. On the other hand, I took a video of approximately 8 minutes in duration with the Vivitar 1700 mAh batteries without seeing a low battery warning, although the camera got pretty hot in the process. I highly recommending getting at least one on the Vivitars as a spare if you're planning to be away from your charger with this camera for any length of time.