Panasonic Fx35 or Fx36 versus Canon SD870 or Ixus 860 IS

Panasonic Fx35 or Fx36 has greate wide angle, 25mm (for 35mm camera standard), and with its Leica lens, it has less or nearly no distortion. Small in size and weight. Unfortunately, the new Venus IV engine from Panasonic Lumix still have the noise issue.

Canon SD870 or Canon Ixus 860 IS has large LCD bright screen of 3", the lens is 28mm wide, so is higher than 35mm, but still not wide enough compare to Panasonic Fx35. Distortion is more servere than Panasonic Fx35. Also larger in size (still small) and heavier (you can really feel it in your pocket). Provide ISO 80 very clean image.

These two comparable models, if you search online, you can find a lot of comparisons. Here I summarized my search results:

Price: Canon 870 cheaper.
Lens: Panasonic Fx35 wider and less distortion.
Zoom: Both around 4x optical zoom, but Panasonic Fx35 offers extended zoom up to 7x if you shot image at a smaller resolution.
Size: Panasonic Fx35 smaller and lighter.
User interface: Canon 870 with great review function, and a programmable button.
LCD screen: Canon 870 larger, brigther LCD.
Noise Control: Canon 870 has a better noise control over Panasonic Fx35.

After all the searching, I go for Canon SD870, and I like it very much. I like the wide angle lengths from Panasonic Lumix, and I will go for Panasonic Lumix if the noisy problem can be improved in the new generation.

There is quite a good discussion on this forum:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=27070012&changemode=1

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