This 2.1Mpixel camera looks very much like a typical compact 35mm. A 3x optical zoom lens telescopes out of the front face when you press an indented power button on the back and the image is zoomed to a full 7.5x with a see-saw digital zoom button at top right. You can use either the optical viewfinder or the LCD panel to line up your subject.

A rotary wheel at the bottom of the back panel selects record or playback modes and auto or manual exposure. A further set of four buttons under the LCD works with a simple set of menus to control most other functions of the camera. The PowerShot A20 takes four AA batteries, which may be alkaline or rechargeable, though no charger is supplied.

The menu system on the PowerShot A20 is easy to navigate, moving left and right over clearly labelled options. Although you can leave most settings on auto, you can also set white balance and exposure manually and compensate for incandescent and fluorescent lighting.

Getting pictures out of the PowerShot A20 means either connecting the supplied lead to your PC's USB port or removing the 8MB CompactFlash card and using a third-party card reader. Either way, the PowerShot utilities are simple but effective in transferring images to your PC.

Using automatic settings on the camera, results were encouraging. Colour balance was generally good, with a slight yellowing in the greens but with good saturation. The auto-focus coped well with difficult subjects (those with multiple focal distances) and the depth of field was fair in good lighting.