After I read about the Canon A710 IS not being released in malaysia over at Sunflower’s place, I was a bit worried as I have my eye on this camera.

To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 5:27 PM
Subject: RE: Customer Enquiry/Feedback@xxxxxxx (30332)

Dear xxxxxxx,

We thank you for interest in our digital camera. We regret to informed you that at this moment of time the said product is not being released in Malaysia. As so we are unable to provide you the pricing.

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused.

We thank you for writing to us and have a pleasant evening.

“Customer Delight”

Best Regards

Canon Helpdesk
ME Division
Canon Marketing (Malaysia) Sdn.Bhd
Tel:603-7844 8333
Fax:603-7844 8222

I made some enquiries via my contacts with Canon Malaysia and they confirmed this camera is to be released in Malaysia within the next two weeks or so, the price has not been confirmed yet.

I think it’s just a case of bad English and what they meant was the camera wasn’t released yet in Malaysia so they didn’t have any pricing information, that’s all. They didn’t mean the camera won’t come out here.

As a customer service representative they should really make it a bit clearer what they are saying as they do give the wrong impression.

Sue bought the camera this weekend, info and a couple of test shots here.

She got the camera for RM1399 with a original case and 512MB SD card from Canon Shop Level 3 KLCC.

Well as I’ve mentioned this one a few times here it is! The first review, I’m really tempted by this camera as I’m a great lover of the Canon Powershot A series for their full manual controls.

I almost bought the A700 for my mom but the 6x optical zoom without any kind of stabiliser isn’t all that useful, finally a A710 with image stabiliser and a very resonable 7.1 megapixels.

The A700 was already an excellent camera, I’m really happy to see a Powershot A series with a stabiliser!

I’ve been looking for a good compact camera to use for food shots and as a backup for my SLR just in case the battery goes flat or it’s too bulky to use (sometimes shopping malls stop you from taking pictures if you are using a SLR but not if you are using a compact).

It also uses AA batteries which is good for travelling and it means my old rechargeable AA from my Powershot A70 won’t be wasted!

ISO performance is clean up to ISO200, at 400 above it’ll only be good for a mid-size print, I thought with the new Digic II processor this might not be a problem, but I guess it’s just basic physics, you can only do so much with a tiny sensor.

The PowerShot A710 IS takes an already excellent camera — the A700 — and adds some one really useful feature (image stabilization) and one not-so-useful feature (more pixels). Despite going up from 6 to 7 Megapixels, the A710′s photo quality remained very good, with noise levels that are perhaps lowered than on its predecessor. When you look at the whole package — from the photo quality to the image stabilizer to the manual controls — you’ll see that the A710 offers a lot of camera for your $400.

Full review here.

I’ll be waiting for some reviews from other sites and I shall go and try it out when it hits KL.