Ixus (Powershot) 400 or 500?

[Saudidave]

My ixus 400 was damaged and my insurance company are replacing it with a new one. They have sent me vouchers for Jessops camera shops.

It has been arguably the best camera I've ever owned. Superb image quality and small enough to take anywhere.

The question is do I take this oppurtunity to upgrade to the latest version or stick with the 400? I have heard that the image quality on the 500 is not as good as the 400 due to more pixels on the same size CCD.

Does anyone have an opinion?

Dave

[gardenstate]

I have the Powershot S400 and my 13-year old son has a new S410. We both are very happy with this 4 MP camera. From what I've read, the S500 does have digital noise in the image under certain conditions.

However, if you crop your images, having the increased resolution may be helpful. In the case of excessive noise, several software programs could be used to eliminate it. If I do have this problem, my favorite is use of the digital noise removal feature in the JASC (now Corel) Paint Shop Pro version 9 (latest).

Either way S410 or S500 -- the camera is great for those wanting a small point and shoot that takes great images.