WiFi stands out among the many upgrades to Canon’s new PowerShot S110

 

 

With a look more reminiscent of the S95, the Canon PowerShot S110 deletes the grip of last year's popular predecessor, the S100, while adding very little to the rest of the camera. But there's one major new feature that proves the Canon PowerShot S110 is more than just refinement: Built-in WiFi. It makes perfect sense for Canon to add WiFi to the most pocketable of its enthusiast digital cameras. Canon says you'll be able to share still images and videos to social networking sites from the S110 through the Canon iMAGE GATEWAY. Or you can transfer them to your iOS and Android smartphones and tablets with the free Canon CameraWindow app.

This isn't the first time Canon has added WiFi connectivity to one of its digital cameras, and we found the previous incarnations of this feature almost unusable. With the new Android-based digital camera releases from Nikon and Samsung last month, and the ubiquity of smartphone and tablet photography, it's becoming more critical for camera manufacturers to build WiFi functionality into their cameras and make sure it actually works; hopefully Canon has achieved this. 

 

The Canon S110's lens seems to be the same as the S100: a 5x optical zoom with 24-120mm equivalent range at apertures of f/2.0-5.9.

The Canon S110 employs a 12.1-megapixel. 1/1.7-inch CMOS sensor and DIGIC 5 processor, much the same on-the-surface specs as the S100. However, Canon says the sensor is "newly designed" with greater sensitivity. Indeed, the ISO range now extends from 80 to 12,800 (compared to the max. ISO 6,400 of the S100), which ostensibly adds some low-light flexibility.

 

The Canon S110 gets a 3-inch LCD with a capacitive touch screen, including Canon's Touch Shutter feature. Canon thinks the touchscreen makes camera menu navigation, image playback and viewing more simple and intuitive.

Priced at US$450, a $20 increase over the S100, the Canon S110 comes in black and white models, and will be available in October 2012.

What to find out what else is new about the Canon PowerShot S110? Read our preview.