Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is at least the 8th digital camera I've had (5 Canons, 2 Kodaks, and an HP). As zoom lenses improved, I opted for larger-but-better zoom models, including two of Canon's (S3 IS and SX20 IS). I have liked the balance of great zoom but smaller-than-SLR size. However in recent years, I have wanted a smaller camera due to size limitations of the baggage I currently carry. After researching for a year or so, I settled on the SX7x0 HS to replace my SX20 IS. I waited until the SX710 came out and bought it just prior to a 2 1/2 week European vacation. I chose it over the 700 due to the enhanced mobile options and higher resolution. I have now taken almost 1,000 pictures and videos on it. Here are some observations in no particular order: * Battery life is fair with the stock battery and good with aftermarket batteries. I carried three (one in the camera, two in the case) and that proved adequate for weeks of travel. I had to charge every few days but never needed more even with heavy use. * Speed is mostly very good. I have review turned on (displays the photo after taking it) which slows things down slightly. Power up is quick. Focus is quick. Shot to shot with review on and having to focus again is not as quick as I'd like, but quick enough that I made no efforts to fix the problem (either turning review off and/or continuous shooting). Only on rare occasion did I miss a shot as a result. * Image quality is good for its size. It is noticeably inferior to the SX20 and S3 in one way that could be important to some people. At the long end of the zoom range, distortion from noise reduction is quite noticeable even at low ISO settings. I have not done direct camera-to-camera comparisons, but my hunch is that the usable information in the images from the SX710 is considerably less than the SX20, despite almost double the megapixles. However, when viewing on a screen (fit to screen) or printing smaller formats (say, 4x6) I think this problem would be unnoticeable. Aside from that one flaw, the camera takes very nice pictures which match or exceed the quality of larger models from even the recent past. * Video quality is excellent for its size. I took video at 720p to save file size (v.s. 1080p). Both the video quality and audio quality were noticeably better from any previous camera I've had, including the other Canons. * Ergonomics are fair. Canon packs a lot of features into a small package. I don't have specific suggestions for improvement, but I do regularly encounter several problems. Inserting or removing the camera to/from the case requires some care to avoid turning it on with one of the multitude of buttons that turns the camera on. The power, shutter, and movie buttons are close enough together to cause wrong-button-pushing problems. And occasionally the back panel buttons (especially the phone button) gets accidentally pressed. * Phone pairing features are very useful. This is the first camera I've had with those features and I wound up using several of them (transfer the images to the phone, and remote control). That was very handy and they're very easy to use after learning how. Based on what I've read about the 700, I'm glad I waited for the 710 for this reason alone. Based on my experiences, I believe this form factor now satisfies the important requirements that previously could only be met with a larger zoom (ala the SX60 and predecessors). Unless you need an absurdly long zoom (more than 30x), and provided you can tolerate the image quality issues at the long end of the zoom, the next logical step up from this is a SLR. An SLR is too big (and expensive) for me, so this camera is my choice. So far, I'm very happy with it.