Need advice on the Canon SD series....

Planning to purchase a digital camera for my son's high school graduation gift. His mom and I both have the SD 900 and love it. However there are a lot of SD models: 600, 900, 850, 870, 700, 750, 1000, 1100, etc. Are the difference in models significant? Just looking for a good general purpose camera for picture taking when he heads to college.
Thanks in advance.

SD600 and, AFAIK, the SD1000, are discontinued.

The Sd800 (also, I think, discontinued) and SD870 have a wider angle of view than the other SD models.

I'd suggest you restrict your search to a model with IS, as it'll make it easier to get sharp shots. Don't let the megapixels sway you - in this case bigger isn't necessarily better; more MP only matter if you're making a very large print, and the tradeoff is that they'll have more sensor noise if they have more MP.

Thanks for the info. I seem to recall hearing that about the MP before so thanks for confirming it.

For the most part, the SD models are pure point and shoot cameras and offer very little in the way of manual controls. Take a look at the Canon website and you'll see that they all have slight differences - focal length, 2.5" vs 3.0" LCD, image stabilization, body coloring etc. Do a few comparisons and see which one suits your needs more.

I think the 870 is the way to go. At college, there'll probably be a lot of group shots, so the wide angle is really, really handy. Get him a backup battery, so he's always ready. Only the 870 (and 800) in the Canon line start at a wide angle of 28mm. All the rest start around 35mm, which is servicable, but the 28 is really much handier.

mot wrote in post #5316281
Best Price --> SD750, SD1000
4X optical Zoom -->SD850, SD870
3" LCD Display --> SD750, SD870
RAW support -->SD870, SD950
12 MP --> SD950

see comparison here

Not the whole story -- no Canon SD has native RAW support. It's only through the CHDK hack. Some sites have reported RAW support for SDs, but it's just not true. You have to understand how to do the hack, be willing to work with a parallel menu structure, and be willing to work w/tools that read crw files (many tools do not). So, unless you are technical, I'd steer clear. If RAW support is important for you, then look at the G9, though it's a bigger camera. For casual snaps, RAW isn't needed.

850 and 870 both have 4X zoom (actually, 3.8 zoom), but the 870 is from a base of 28mm equivalent. So, the 870 has more wide angle (better for group and landscape shots) but less reach (for getting up close), than the 850.

If you want price, SD750 is a better camera than the SD1000. SD870 is the best overall from that list, excepting maybe the SD950 (which I haven't worked with, so I couldn't judge).

If you like the SD900, you probably won't go wrong with the 750, 870 or 950, but I use the SD800 constantly, and that wide angle sure is sweet. I'd be wary of 12MP on such a tiny sensor (the 950) which can lead to more image noise.