Canon PowerShot A3400 IS

The Canon PowerShot A3400 IS ($179.99 direct) is a pocket camera that succeeds in having a responsive touch-screen LCD, but in a rare misstep for Canon, fails in most of its image gathering capabilities. Its lens is rather sharp, albeit extremely slow on the long end of its middling 5x zoom range, but the 16-megapixel camera is plagued by high image noise, even though it saps details from photos in a vain attempt to curtail it. The camera, which is also slow to start up and recycle between photos, doesn't come close to ousting one of Canon's better efforts, the PowerShot Elph 310 HS ($259.99, 4 stars) as our Editors' Choice for mid-range point-and-shoot cameras.

Design and Features
The A3400 looks absolutely great from the outside. Its metal body is small and solid, and the camera can be had in red, silver, gold, and black finishes. It measures 2.2 by 3.7 by 0.8 inches (HWD) and weighs about 5 ounces, making it almost indistinguishable from the 8x (28-224mm f/3-5.9 equivalent) zoom PowerShot A4000 IS ($199.99, 3.5 stars). The A3400's 5x (28-140mm f/2.8-6.9) is a bit less ambitious?and it is about half an f-stop slower on the telephoto end. This means that the camera will need to use a longer shutter speed or higher ISO setting when zoomed all the way in than you would with the A4000.

Even though the camera is a touch-screen model, it also has the standard control buttons that you'd expect to find on a pocket shooter. This is rather nice, as it allows you to control the camera in a way in which you are comfortable. Canon has produced other touch cameras previously, notably the PowerShot Elph 510 HS ($349.99, 3.5 stars), which completely eliminated physical controls?it's my opinion that the hybrid approach is the more sensible way to go. That said, the A3400's 3-inch LCD is not the greatest in terms of resolution. It features only 230k dots, which is standard for a camera in this price range, but only about half as sharp as the 460k dot screens found on more expensive cameras.

The menu system is pretty intuitive. By default, the camera is set to Auto mode, but it's easy enough to change the shooting mode. When placed in Program mode you can touch the rear LCD to fire the shutter and use the touch display to adjust the Exposure Compensation to make a photo lighter or darker. It's also possible to disable the Touch Shutter and instead use the display to enable Touch Autofocus?just tap what you'd like to be in focus and the camera will do the rest. The rest of the menu works the same as it would on any other camera?hitting the Function button brings up an overlay menu from which you can adjust common shooting settings, but you'll need to use the physical controls to navigate through it?touch input isn't supported in this case.

Performance and Conclusions
In terms of speed, the A3400 IS is a bit of a disappointment. The camera makes you wait 2.4 seconds after hitting the power button to take a photo, records a 0.4 second shutter lag, and makes you wait 1.4 seconds between photos. It barely outpaced the Samsung MV800 ($279.99, 2.5 stars), which takes 2.3 seconds to start, requires 1.6 seconds between shots, and delivers a 0.4 second shutter lag. If speed is a major concern, consider our Editors' Choice Canon Elph 310 HS?it wowed us with a 2 second start up, 0.45 second recycle time, and a 0.3 second shutter lag.

I used Imatest to measure the sharpness of the A3400's lens. It scored well?notching 1,891 lines per picture height, a bit better than the 1,800 lines that set the standard for a sharp photo. This is a good, but not outstanding, result. Another touch screen camera, the Samsung SH100 ($199.99, 3 stars), performed about the same?it notched a score of 1,876 lines.

I also tested the noise that is present in the images captured by the camera at its various ISO settings. The results were disappointing to say the least. At its base ISO of 100 the A3400 records just under 1.5 percent noise?any result above this number indicates that the photos from the camera are just a bit too noisy for general use. The number increases to 1.8 percent at ISO 200 and tops out at a staggering 2.6 percent at its highest sensitivity to light, ISO 1600. What's worse is that images shot at ISO 400 and above have a waxy look to them?all sense of fine detail and texture is gone?due to excessive noise reduction. It will be hard to get good photos from this camera even in bright light?I wouldn't recommend shooting it above ISO 200. The A4000 IS, which also suffers from some heavy-handed noise reduction, did just a little bit better here?it records clean images through ISO 800, and manages to capture a good bit of detail at ISO 400 and below.

The camera's video performance is also pretty disappointing. Footage is recorded in 720p25 HD resolution in QuickTime format. It looks fairly grainy, and the camera is limited to a digital zoom while recording?which saps quality the moment that you engage it. The A3400 supports standard SD, SDHC, and SDX memory cards, and features a mini USB port for computer connectivity.

Unless you are dead-set on a budget-priced touch-screen camera, it's best to avoid the A3400 IS. You don't even have to go that far to find an alternative?Canon's A4000 IS is just $20 more and gives you slightly better image quality and a more versatile 8x zoom lens. You could also consider a budget superzoom like the General Electric E1410SW ($159.99, 3.5 stars)?another camera that also has some limitations, but manages to make up for some of them with a 10x zoom lens and a low price. If you are really in the love with the idea of a touch screen, the Samsung SH100 is slightly better and only a little more expensive. You can also consider the touch screen Canon PowerShot Elph 510 HS, a much better camera, albeit one that is twice the price. Our Editors' Choice mid-range compacts the Canon PowerShot Elph 310 HS?a camera that is almost $100 more than this one, but is able to capture much nicer photos without having to put too much thought into restricting ISO settings.

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