Despite the slim frame, the SD780 IS is a bit more advanced than your basic point-and-shoot, but it's still definitely for casual shooters. You don't get many manual controls, other than ISO settings, white-balance settings, and exposure compensation values. However, the collection of shooting modes and scene selections in the camera (20 in all) make up for that quite a bit.

At first glance, you won't see that many scene modes; most of them are "hidden" from the main scene selection navigation and are accessible only by pressing the Display button once you've navigated all the way to the right of the scene menu. It's a minor irritation that could have been obviated just by letting you repeatedly press the right navigational button to scroll through all the available scene modes.

In addition to old standbys such as Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, and Snow, some really creative scene options are in the mix. Two of the best are Canon's Color Accent and Color Swap modes. Color Accent lets you isolate a single color in an otherwise black-and-white shot, while Color Swap lets you change all instances of one color in your shot to another color. They're fun to use and work well, and are even accessible in the SD780 IS's movie mode (which shoots 720p HD movies at 30 frames per second; clips are saved as .mov files).

To complement its HD video chops, the SD780 IS also has another nice feature: an HDMI-out port for viewing images and videos on an HDTV (but no included HDMI cable). In addition to its 720p HD mode, the SD780 IS also shoots 640-by-480 and 320-by-240 standard-definition clips, both at 30fps. A minor disappointment is that you can't zoom in and out while filming.

Canon has taken the concept of a fashionable, easy-to-use point-and-shoot that also performs well and knocked it out of the park. The SD780 IS is sure to turn heads and keep casual photographers happy with its image quality and fun features. It's the best-looking point-and-shoot camera we've seen in 2009, and it's one of the best basic point-and-shoots, period. The trade-off is that you don't get much in the way of manual controls, and the $280 price tag is geared more to its style and performance than its specs.