Lens
The lens is the same 3x zoom SMC one found on the previous compact Pentax cameras, and this is no bad thing. The reputation of the lens is a good one, and let's be honest: if it's not broke, don't fix it.
The lens always produces sharp pictures up to its 3x magnification. However, the digital zoom mode is - like all cameras - one that should be used sparingly.
The effective lens magnification is 38mm-114mm if compared to a 35mm camera, so gives a decent range. However it's not quite wide enough at its lowest magnification level, where as a true 35mm would have been nice.
Technology
Besides the obvious 10.4MP CCD (10MP effective) there is a lot of nice technology on this camera. The most obvious of which are the Shake Reduction and the Face recognition.
The Shake Reduction system works better than the one employed on the Sony cameras of this size, and does not seem to clip the photos as much. This is probably because it uses Pentax's CCD-Shift system rather than a pure digital version. In practice I found that you could shoot at around 2 speeds quicker with the system than without. For example, a shot that I could hold sharp and steady at 1/60sec would be usable at 1/8sec with the system active. A definite advantage.
The other system that seems to be popular with manufacturers at the moment is the facial recognition. The camera 'sees' a face and automatically adjusts both the focus point and the shooting mode as it sees fit. The Pentax system goes a little further and can actually recognise children and animals as well, and this makes the camera a great 'point and shoot' tool.
Quality
The A20 seems to manage happily under most conditions, although I did see it struggling on some dark scenes. However, these could be easily corrected using Photoshop without loosing any details.
I was also shocked by how little noise this sensor created even at high ISO modes. The Ixus certainly looks better "un-shopped" but the resulting images are certainly more detailed using the A20. Even at ISO 800 the noise was not as high as I would have expected. It is worth noting that the auto mode seems to suffer most at low levels, and the best results are achieved using the Manual modes.
Article comments
1 - rostislav danek
how about the shooting speed? i read in some rewievs that it is pretty slow rather anoying.
2 - Ashleigh
I never found to shoot speed to be an issue. It's at least as quick as my Ixus's.