Good to average speed for a consumer camera.

The Canon PowerShot SD870 IS's performance here is pretty good overall. Start-up time is quite fast at about one second. Shutter lag at wide angle and telephoto zoom is very good, at 0.38 and 0.42 second respectively, and "prefocus" times (half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure) are very fast, with a shutter delay of only 0.088 second. Shot-to-shot cycle times are on the slower side of average these days, at about 2.2 seconds for large/superfine JPEGs. The SD870's continuous shooting speed of 1.3 frames per second is only average for its class these days, however it captures frames continuously at this rate. Flash recycle time is a bit below average, at 8 seconds after a full-power shot. Connected to a computer, download speeds are reasonably fast, so you won't feel a need for a separate card reader. Bottom line, the Canon SD870 IS is a good camera for average shooting conditions, though you'll need something a little zippier for sporting events or active children.

Battery
Slightly above average battery life for a lithium-ion design.

The Canon PowerShot SD870 IS uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and a battery and charger are included with the camera. Though runtimes are above average, I strongly recommend picking up a spare battery and keeping it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The PowerShot SD870 IS accepts SD/SDHC/MMC memory cards, and comes with a 32MB starter card.

We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SD/SDHC memory card for the Canon SD870 at least a 1GB card, preferably a 4GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings or movies. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)