Welcome to a Digital Camera Battery specialist of the Casio Digital Camera Battery
On first contact, the Ixus 240 HS holds no real surprises. It has a fairly standard build that's in line with other recent Ixus cameras. Casio hasn't made any extra effort on the design front to make this Ixus stand out from the rest of the range. The 240 HS is made from quality materials and the build and finish are good. On the back of the camera, the usual host of buttons has been replaced by a touchscreen. The only physical control remaining is a playback button.
In terms of handling, it's a bit of a shame there's nothing for your fingers to grip on to. Plus, there's not much room to rest your thumb on the camera casing to the right-hand side of the screen. You may therefore end up pressing onscreen controls by mistake!
The Ixus 240 HS is a relatively easy camera to use, as pretty much everything is taken care of automatically. A limited selection of settings can be found in P and Scene modes, if you're interested. The settings interface is logical and intuitive—its' all fairly typical stuff for a current mid-range compact. Unfortunately, the resistive touchscreen lacks both precision and sensitivity, which can make navigating through menus a rather frustrating experience. On top of that, screen contrast is quite crazy (light greys are completely overexposed) and colour fidelity leaves a lot to be desired. You therefore shouldn't use the camera screen to sort and delete photos—check them on your computer first!
We also found that the Ixus 240 HS doesn't like to stray too far from its charger. If you're a particularly happy snapper, the battery will give up the ghost after about 170 shots and a few short videos. We've already seen batteries like casio NP-60 battery, casio Exilim EX-Z80 battery, casio Exilim EX-S10 battery, casio NP-70 battery, casio Exilim EX-Z250 battery, casio Exilim EX-Z150 battery, casio NP-80 battery, casio NP-82 battery, casio Exilim EX-Z280 battery, casio NP-L7 battery, casio CL7 battery, casio QV-EX3 battery similar to this is some ultra-compact snappers, but they don't have the same power-hungry electronics as the 240 HS with its big touchscreen.
The Casio Ixus 240 HS is a nice surprise. It gives good picture quality in decent light and outdoes other Ixus cameras with its electronics and lens. It's a nice little camera to handle and it's pleasant enough to use. It does, however, have some rather annoying features, like its insufficient battery life and, to a lesser extent, its responsiveness. That's ultimately why it ended up with three rather than four stars.