Rating: 
Summary: great bang for the buck
Review: ultra tiny, excellent over all image quality, great for point-and-shooters. also some nice features for semi-advanced users. takes very good videos. i got a second battery and a 512meg card, cost an extra $...,however,you will never need anything extra for day trips. two batteries and that size card will keep almost anyone content for days on end. in my experience the battery will last for about 120 pictures,with the LCD,and a handful of videos.what most don't mention is this camera comes with the built in ability to stitch together multiple images to great a panned image. you can stich as many photos as you wish. maybe a large scene won't fit in the cameras lens but you don't want to zoom out because it will include some unwated feature? zoom in and take 2 pictures rather than one and the computer software will stitch the photos together flawlessly. you can also do 180/360 degree pan of a scene. gripes:
the zoom is tiny,but its to be expected for this cameras size. the full res videos are a tease, they are only up to 30 seconds long. if the camera had the ability to record streaming video right to the compact flash i wouldn't even need my camcorder anymore! get a compact flash card reader, the USB cable and software is a bit cumbersome for more advanced computer users. **side note for the gentlemen who dislikes the lag between pressing the shutter button and the actual photo taking.**
read the manual,it will explain in detail this process. press the button half way,the camera adjusts all the settings automatically to the suroundings(lighting,focus,flash,shutter speed/aperature,ISO,etc),when its ready,it lets you know. then you may take the photo by fully depressing the button.
Rating: 
Summary: Longer I have it the less I like it
Review: I've had this camera since February (it's now June). I really liked it at first. When I took it to Cancun, it was great for taking photos of Mayan ruins and such. But the longer I have it, the more the drawbacks irritate me. The biggest drawback is that in anything less than direct sunlight the CCD SUCKS. I have a horrible time getting good focus even just in the shade of a tree. Indoors I get a lot of digital artifacts. With my previous camera, a Canon Powershot A50, it was wonderful in low-light applications, very clear, very sharp, very good color. There is the flash, but it isn't the best. I still end up with soft (fuzzy) photos with a flash indoors, and if I'm close to the subject it often ends up being washed out. I consider myself a fairly advanced amateur photographer and have tried all sorts of automatic and manual settings to improve it indoors to no avail. At this point I am beginning to review other cameras because I need to replace this. The "low-light" drawbacks (that's in quotes because it's not so much a low-light problem as a less than extreme sunlight problem) make the image quality too embarassing to share photos from family functions. I used to be proud of the photos I took indoors at family functions and now I only share them reluctantly. That said, the small size and the fast startup and shot speeds are great. And the video function is the one function that works great even indoors. I definitely like everything except whatever causes it to perform so poorly indoors and in low light. Buyer beware!
Rating:
Summary: Like a Tank
Review: I, along with most of my friends, have this camera. You really feel as though you could back over it with the car and it would still work great. The pictures turn out great. The camera is incredibly easy to use and compact. You will have to purchase an additional memory card (256 Megs recommended) since the one that it comes with will only hold 12 pictures. The negatives: The LCD display has trouble if you are trying to take pictures without good lighting. The zoom is limited but this camera is intended more for taking pictures of close up things versus long distance vistas.
Rating: 
Summary: Great little camera!
Review: Love this camera. Take it anywhere and shoot as many pics as I want with a 512mb card I got from Dell for $$$. This is my first digital camera and I can't stop using it. Very easy to use and takes great photos. Works great with my new photo printer, the Canon i470d. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent camera, however..
Review: I agree with most reviews. This is indeed an awesome camera, great fun for the money! The video feature for under $400 is well worth it. I do not regret getting it. However, my biggest complaint is on the [poor]software shipped with the box. (Please Note: I use Windows 2000/SP3, so do many other users). Here's a list: 1) The USB connection [is weak]! It's connected, but it doesn't detect so unless you switch some buttons on the camera to "excite" it! This is fustrating sometimes. I mean, without a good connection, what good is a digital camera? This problem is constant with all three of my machines at home. However, I admit this is a minor problem, and might be fixed by upgrading my system software. The next problem is by far much worse: 2) The software is of very low quality. Did canon save cost py outsourcing to some poor country to code it? Why would a device driver need to be 25MB and a simple program need 100MB? It is buggy as hell and runs very slowly. Figure out how to download the avi video clips yet? The software doesn't let you do that. Even the so called "video editing" software doesn't let you do that! 3) The resulting photos are really high quality, however I noticed that they tend to be a lot darker when transfered to the computer. It looked a lot brighter (and nicer) on the LCD screen on the camera. The samething applies for the video clips. There's nothing in the manual to fix this problem.. I mean, how come the downloaded images look dramatically different from the one you preview on the LCD screen? This is what I ended up doing to get around these problems: 1) You get used to the USB thing :) Or spend an extra 30 bucks to get a CF card reader. It's not that big of a problem... really Use other standard photo-editing software to mess with your images. For video files, I recommend converting to DIVX format using the program "VirtualDub" right away (decrease the file size to 10% of the original), and then using other programs to make it into MPEG VCD format if you want (so you can make a VCD to see it on TV) 3) Use "gamma correction" in any software to correct the light/darkness problem with any good software (ie, not canon's). For video files, there's a filter in the VirtualDub program that lets you correct the brightness/contrast of the video clip, so mess around with that. I got pleasant results afterwards. However, ordinary users (like granddad) don't need to do these things!! I would definately give this camera 4-5 stars if they made the software more pleasant for me. But overall, it is a very good camera. They definately spent a lot of time on the camera itself. It is shameful that they did not do so to the software...
Rating:
Summary: The #1 Three-Megapixel Digital Camera!
Review: I've tried/owned a few digital cameras in the past and I've found the S230 to be THE BEST digital camera in its price range. Picture quality is great. Physical size of the camera is awesome (that can't be beaten by anyone). Movie mode works like a charm...great picture and sound. Battery seems to last forever (and charging time is minimal). Since no product is 100% perfect, I'd have to say the only drawback with the camera is its responsiveness to a quick-photo. Sometimes it takes about a half-second to respond after you push the button. Other than that "problem", though, it's tough for me to think of a second drawback. I hope you buy this camera. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The S230's big secret - amazing video capability
Review: The deciding factor for me in getting this camera turned out to be its high-quality video capability. As far as I am aware, there is no digital still camera that can compete with the sharp resolution of the movie clips this camera can produce (though Canon's Powershot A70 comes close). Who would guess that a camera this tiny would win the prize in that department? Yet it's true. I was considering going with this camera's 4 megapixel sibling, the s400. Yet ironically and weirdly, that camera, which is supposed to represent an upgrade to this one, has only a lower-quality video capability. [Who at] Canon...made that decision? I don't want to give the impression that this camera's video can compete with that of a real video camera. Be prepared for these limitations: 1) In the highest resolution setting (recommended), each clip is limited to a maximum of 30 seconds. It is 3 minutes in the lower settings. 2) Settings like focusing, zoom, and exposure do not adjust during a video clip. This means that if your subject starts out in the shade and shifts to a bright setting, it may look overexposed. 3) The recorded sound of the video is not great, with some hiss always audible and pronounced wind noise in a breeze. 4) You don't get the 30fps of a real video camera, so the motion is not as smooth-looking. 5) No digital stabilization. Hold the camera very steady or use a tripod. 6) You need lots of memory to record videos, approximately 1MB per second. I purchased two 512 MB flash cards. Each can record over 8 minutes of video clips, or hold over 300 highest-resolution photos. A 512 costs a little over $100 right now. Despite these limitations, the extreme portability of this camera has convinced me to use it for most of my video shooting. The 30-second time limit is not as bad as you might at first think. Even when using my dedicated video camera, I doubt I have taken many shots of greater length. The ones that are longer are boring anyway. And I have found a solution to the terrible wind noise. By putting the smallest bandaid I could find over the tiny dot of a microphone (to serve as a wind screen), the wind noise was completely eliminated without, amazingly, cutting down the audibility of other sounds. Being able to take photographs when appropriate, and videos when appropriate, with the flip of a switch from the same tiny camera that you can take anywhere, is wonderful. You can even combine both into great movies using tools like Microsoft's PhotoStory (PLUS Digital Media edition software) and Windows Moviemaker version 2 (which is a free download for XP users).
Rating:
Summary: good camera but see other
Review: Cannon S230 is a good camera , it gives beautiful and sharp pictures, but as compared to Cybershots from SONY, the camera lacks lots of features like
The movie is limited to time frame of 3 minutes as compared to Cybershots where movie is limited with the size of memory.
The Cybershots have special modes for taking pics at night, snow, beach and other special conditions.
The camera has 2x optical zoom, which is pretty low.
The camera dos not show battery time as compared to other Cybershots.
In all , I would prefer to spend more money on Cybershots rather than paying for Powershots
Rating:
Summary: a very nice compact camera
Review: I bought this little thing several months age. I didn't go anyhere without it.It's so nicely designed that you can carry it to any place.With those advanced features ,you can take very sharp pics. digitally developed photoes are no less vivid than those taken by optical cameraes.I love it
Rating:
Summary: S230 Is a great compact camera
Review: What an incredible camera! Incredible resolution for printing, compact enough to fit in your front pocket, and even has video for spur of the moment situations. Manual mode, automatic mode, things just don't get much sweeter. I would recommend getting batteries and memory on ebay for a great deal. This is the best camera in its class.
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