The Canon Powershot A410 was released as a beginner/entry level/budget Powershot series of cameras from the Early/Mid 2000s. They had a very unique shape and no frills- no Av/Tv/M modes like the other Powershots of the time (which would become common place in the Canon Powershot ELPH series).
Before I get into the review itself this camera has a story behind how I acquired it, and it belongs to my SO. Back in early 2019 when the Nintendo Switch was still quite the rage and really hard to come by, my SO decided to go for a fairly reasonable offer (but not in the realm of suspicious on the asking price alone) Switch from a seller on Letgo, an app that's like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace.
The seller had arranged to meet us in the parking lot of a grocery store and at last minute changed it to a private residence. That's where we should have stopped and just drove away but we didn't. It was also after dark which was another red flag and mistake but my partner had her heart set on this Switch and it was her money so we agreed to the new meeting spot.
The "Seller's Boyfriend" then showed up, which is another red flag that we should have driven away but by the time we got this far it may have been too late. They handed us a switch box then took the cash. Before we could open the box they bolted into the yard and were gone into the darkness.
Inside the box was not a Nintendo Switch but a Gameboy Advance with a broken screen, some rolled up newspaper and this camera. We filed a Police report and reported the seller but nothing ever came of it, so we learned a valuable lesson about Scams that day but hey the camera worked atleast so we got something for the money (even if it retailed for $150 brand new and is only worth around $20-30 today).
Behold the Digicam on loan from my GF that she wound up getting from a "blind box" for $250:
The Canon A4XX series of cameras were one of the first consumer digital cameras sold for under $200 along with the Olympus Camedia D series of cameras. When you compare this with a Camedia D the Canon does have more features at that price point like a slow but working optical zoom and taking a more standard form of memory (SD).
The A410 was released in 2005 and has a 1/3.2" 3.2 MP CCD sensor. Like the Olympus Camedia D cameras this sensor size was smaller then the more standard 1/2.3 / 1/2.5" class sensors for standard pocket cameras and significantly smaller then the 1/1.7" sensor used in premium point and shoot cameras. Smaller sensors made these cameras cheaper to make and ironically enough had sensors very similar to the first generation of Smartphones.
Like a lot of digicams in the budget class from the 2000s this camera works off of AA batteries. And the battery life wasn't the worst when compared to cameras like the Nikon L110 and GE camera. I shot it all week on one set of rechargeable AAs never having gotten a low battery warning (though the clock battery was dead and it was really hard to find a replacement battery for it so I just dealt with being a Time Traveler and having all my photos be tagged that they were taken in 1980)
The fact that this is still a Canon CCD sensor meant that it still gets really rich colors and contrast which means that I'll have to yield that its not the worst camera in my collection. Color rendition was spot on which other cheap cameras (such as the Fuji A345 I reviewed earlier and the GE Camera) really struggled with, so as porky as this thing was it's not the worst digicam in my collection.
It doesn't have the sharpest lens and you defiantly get that softer more compressed look on its JPEGs but you have to look fairly close to notice it. A print on a table from this camera is going to look just fine until you hold it up close. There was some noticeable CA that was not easily correctable that you can see in the third shot.
That said it lacks a lot of things. The ability to do Manual modes/priority modes, and to change anything in P mode (such as the exposure comp) is a huge hassle because you need to access a quick menu to do it. But this is standard in a lot of cameras of this class.
Menu response is laggy as well, about what you would expect from a 2005 Digicam. As well as a shutter lag too. Startup and shutdown of the camera were surprisingly quick and responsive however.
With some patience a digicam enthusiast could still get some useable photos from this the Canon Powershot A410 (as I was able to do). My expectation was set extremely low for this camera as I expected it to be one of the worst cameras in my collection; and while its not a camera I'd likely ever use as a daily carry, it does an ok job for what it is- a nearly 20 year old digicam with less then 6mp of resolution.
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