rxjohn wrote in post #11742260
I hate the name Rebel ..and would prefer 550D or Kiss X4 logo on the camera.
Yup. I hate that red "Rebel" on the camera, and would even pay a few bucks extra to get one that says "550D." That it'd be grey market wouldn't faze me in the least.
This having been said, one could just put a piece of black tape over the word "Rebel." An inexpensive and readily removable solution.
But what I did was decide that I'd rather have a 60D, anyway. 
BTW, I owned an original Digital Rebel (the 300D), and it annoyed me that most of the ones sold in the US were silver, not black. (European and Japanese markets seemed to get mostly black ones.) I actually spoke with a Canon executive at a business conference once, and mentioned this to him. He suggested that the US market got silver bodies because research had shown that many US DSLR buyers - moreso than those in Europe or Japan - wanted to buy a camera that wasn't "intimidating." And black was more closely associated in their minds with complicated, intimidating, professional cameras, whereas silver was friendlier and less scary.
'Course, he was a lawyer, and not a marketing exec. But it sounded plausible to me. Particularly since back before the 300D was introduced, digital SLRs were still fairly uncommon, very expensive, and therefore somewhat intimidating items.
I wonder if the US market doesn't get stuck with "Rebel" on the bodies because Canon did a study and found that many of the potential purchasers in the US were young adults who liked to think of themselves as independent and not just one of the pack, and so they liked the "Rebel" tag. Whereas, presumably, European and Asian buyers felt a little differently about their place in the great scheme of things.
(Of course, the different names also make it easier to identify grey market imports, which is of some value to Canon, but that could be done in a variety of other ways.)
Oh, if you do buy the 550D, and it comes boxed with all the usual stuff, will you need to buy a plug adapter to use the battery charger in the US? Not that this is a big deal, really. And in pretty much every other way, once you opt for English language on the menus, the camera's region of origin won't really matter.
--
Michael
