well the canon powershot a540 is a sturdy looking compact camera it has a good lense as you might expect from canon , a decent 6.0 Mp a 4x zoom range and also dslr like possibilities, in the P,AV,TV and M there is full manual controll , this is pretty unique.

This camera runs on alkaline batteries wich is good since they are availeable at almost every corner of the world. The memory size is limited to 2GB but with superfine mode still 750 shots . it also has other resolutions , and is pretty fast for compact camera's.

i like the sturdy feeling , i also like the large screen 2.5 inch low-temperature...