ARCHOS AV300
AVCam 300 vs Canon S20
2/20/2004 v1.0
(back to my AVCam 300 review)

I got my hands on my sister's Canon S20 and shot a bunch of comparison pictures with the AVCam 300. Both cameras are 3.3 mega pixels. The S20 has a 2x optical zoom while the AVCam 300 has a 3x optical zoom. I set both to the highest quality picture mode and left the rest to auto.

If you click on the thumbnails you can see the original, full-sized photos. I have a confession to make, though. I recompressed a few of the Canon photos which were 2 to 2.5 megs (huge!) down to about 1 meg using Photoshop. I did so to save on server space, but I was very careful and selected the optimal compression for each photo so as not to lose any detail.

So, take a look at the photos and read my conclusion below...

AVCam 300	Canon S20
Indoor with flash. Poor focus, very grainy and oversaturated.	Indoor with flash. Good focus, not grainy, but a little under saturated
Indoor with flash. Good color, good saturation, a little grainy and not-quite-perfect focus	Indoor with flash. Harsh lighting and under saturated
Indoor with flash. Accurate color and good focus	Indoor with flash. Close to accurate color, good focus
Outdoor, no flash. 3x zoom - great color	Outdoor, no flash. 2x zoom - reds are purple
Outdoor, no flash. Good color*	Outdoor, no flash. Poor color
Indoor, no flash. Good detail	Indoor, no flash. Appears to have slightly more detail
Outdoor, no flash. Surprisingly good exposure of both very-dark and very-light	Outdoor, no flash. Over exposed
Outdoor, no flash. Okay image detail	Outdoor, no flash. Better image detail
Indoor, no flash. Surprisingly good color though perhaps a tad oversaturated. Good exposure in both dark and light	Indoor, no flash. Under saturated and over exposed
Indoor, no flash. Truer color	Indoor, no flash. Slightly sharper detail

Conclusion:

I expected the Canon S20 to kick the Cam300's butt across the board. Surprisingly, the Cam300 outdid the Canon S20 more than once. Overall, the S20 is a better camera. Almost every shot with the S20 was in perfect-focus whereas less than 50% of the Cam300s pictures were in perfect-focus. The S20 did considerably better with flash shots, though it was a little under saturated.

However, many times the Cam300 had better color and better exposure than the S20 in daylight shots. In some of the shots the difference is night and day. The Cam300 was worlds better than the S20. You can also see how much nicer it is to have 3x over 2x zoom.

All in all the Canon S20 is more reliable. Plus it has features such as macro that the Cam300 can't compete with. The particular S20 tested gets further kudos for doing well while being pretty old (my sister bought it used more than 2 years ago). However, the Cam300 really holds its own. Out of the two, I'd say the addition of the 20gb HD makes the Cam300 my camera of choice. Now if I could just get a Cam300 with a more sensitive CCD (for more detail on darker pictures and less blurring), reliable auto focus, and macro mode, the Canon S20 would be soundly beat.

-Shane Brinkman-Davis

*In the pictures of the red Saab where the S20 caught it as magenta or even purple, the Cam300 got the color right on. What is odd is I have had the Cam300 get bright reds in daylight as orange - in almost exactly the same circumstances, but on the day of this shot it worked great.

(In hind site, I should have tried some more flash pictures and no-flash dark pictures. This is where the Cam300 doesn't do as well while the S20 does fine. I further should have taken some action shots. The Cam300 blurs anything moving faster than a walk even in bright daylight. I suspect the S20 would do a bit better there.)