With micro-4/3rds cameras and extremely tempting budget dSLRs coming into their own in 2010, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the super-zoom category was all but dead. Trust Canon to come along and shake things up. To be fair, the PowerShot SX30 IS isn’t just another super-zoom, it’s the big daddy of all super-zooms right now with undeniably the most super of zooms out there. Switch it on, and the lens starts at a sensible wide angle of 24mm and goes…and keeps on going…all the way till 840mm! That’s a massive 35x optical zoom, specs many cameras can’t manage even with digital zoom thrown in!

Form factor-wise, the SX30 IS is not small, by any stretch — that lens has to go someplace in resting position. So what you have is a 601g mini-beast, heavier than some budget dSLRs out there and certainly a handful to hold. It’s got great ergonomics and camera controls that it inherits from its illustrious predecessors.

Under the hood, the SX30 IS is kitted with a 14.1-megapixel CCD sensor, Canon’s DIGIC 4 processor that allows you to go all the way to an ISO (sensitivity) of up to 1600 in daylight without major noise issues. Outdoors, the 35x zoom works very well, and the image stabilisation works very well even when you’re fully zoomed in.

Indoors is a little more tricky, as expected, but the focusing is fast and accurate. If you’re the movie shooting kind, this baby shoots 720p resolution movies at 30 frames per second, but seems to have a 22-23 minute maximum limit when shooting at full resolution even if you have memory card space left, which is an irritant.

That aside, the stills camera shooting is extremely competent, colours are well saturated and image quality is pretty good for the money. And the zoom isn’t just for spec sheet — it really does work! Verdict? It’s expensive as a super-zoom, but if you’re looking to stay clear of a digital SLR but want as much power as a compact can afford, it would be difficult to say it’s not worth the money.

• Rating: 8/10

• Price: Rs 28,995

• URL: http://bit.ly/hk0Ukd

Smart underdog

I’ve been a fan of the Opera philosophy for almost a decade now, back in the days when it was the quirky choice of enthusiasts who wanted newer features in their browsers first, way before the Internet Explorers of the world adopted them. No longer though. With recent versions, Opera has matured into a robust, full-featured suite of browsing tools. With version 11, Opera introduces tab stacking — a panacea to all of us who work with well over 20-30 browser tabs at a time. What tab stacking allows you to do is to group tabs together simply by dragging one tab on top of another. The tabs appear as a stack, and you can hover your mouse over the tab stack to see a preview of the tabs hidden underneath. Try it, it’s an amazing way to group your browsing activities, and it’s pretty intuitive to use.

Also new to Opera in version 11 is the concept of add-ons, mini programs that add functionality much in the same manner as they do in Chrome and Safari. You also get a new security-badge system, which marks sites as “verified safe” or as malicious, so you know which sites may try and hijack your personal data.

Opera doesn’t have the backing of a major corporation like Chrome, IE or Safari and not nearly the kind of developer community that Firefox can boast of, but it does bring to the table a great combo-pack of speed and built-in features. If you’ve ever rooted for the underdog, give Opera 11 a shot. You will not be disappointed.

• Rating: 9/10

• Price: Free

• URL: http://bit.ly/hIt55y

Heavy duty stuff

If you’re looking for a laptop that goes beyond the basic web browsing, spreadsheets and word documents, and does double duty as a multimedia hub, consider the Lenovo Y series of IdeaPad notebooks. Granted, its 15-in form factor and 2.7kg weight means you won’t really be carrying it around much, so keep in mind this is primarily for those who want a desktop replacement at home. That said, the Y560 is built very well, and is possibly one of the best consumer laptops I have seen at this price point. Looks are above average, but the glossy finish all over means you’re going to have to deal with fingerprints on a daily basis.

Boot this up and the specs impress — the Y560 that I looked at features Intel’s Core i7-740M processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, 500 GBs of hard disk space and a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD5730 graphics card to output on a 15.6-in HD LED display, or to your large screen TV via HDMI should you wish. The Core i5 variant even features a built-in TV Tuner, and the excellent JBL speakers are standard across the range. Put it to everyday use, and the laptop is snappy in operation, handling multimedia and even photo/video editing jobs with consummate ease. Movies and games are a given, though some of the latest games can only be enjoyed at medium resolutions. All in all, the Y560 presents a solid feature set that’s worth the extra penny you pay for it, if everyday portability is not paramount to you.

• Rating: 8/10

• Price: Rs 59,190 + tax

• URL: http://bit.ly/ eAoDVB