Category Archives: canon

Apple iPhone 4 photo quality for a point-and-shoot snapper

Is the photo quality on Apple’s iPhone 4 good enough that I could leave my Canon IXUS 801S at home?

Unfortunately I think not. At least, that was my impression after taking a few snaps today.

Here’s the Canon:

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and the iPhone 4:

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With the iPhone 4 you tap to focus. I took multiple shots of this flower from various distances, trying to focus it correctly, but it has a tendency to do a better job on the background foliage.

Next, a snap of a record sleeve. Better for the iPhone, but still not great. Here’s the Canon:

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and the iPhone:

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It’s not surprising that a dedicated camera takes better snaps than one built into a phone; and I still think the iPhone camera is excellent. But I’ll keep packing the Canon in my bag.

Canon’s bad dialog, weak Linux support

While installing Canon’s MX700 all-in-one printer on Windows, I spotted this for my collection of bad dialogs:

do you want to restart the system now?

Hint: if you ask the user a question, it’s good to allow for more than one answer. Even if you close the dialog by clicking the x at top right, it still reboots the system.

I was also interested to see whether the printer works with Linux. Canon doesn’t offer Linux drivers. Nor does it seem keen to hear from customers about this:

Linux printing for other printers

The CAPTCHA test always presents 8 zeroes, which it then rejects as invalid.

I haven’t quite given up.  There are Linux drivers for the Pixma MP520 which are rumoured to work somewhat. When I have a moment I’ll give it a try.

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