The compact digital cameras in Canon's Digital IXUS range have always been stylish as well as geared towards the happy snapper who likes high quality images for minimum amounts of effort. In that respect the IXUS 990 IS continues in the great tradition, only with a much higher than usual price tag.

Weighing 160g and measuring a comfortable 94.8 x 56.8 x 26.3mm, the 990 IS has a beautifully styled, sophisticated and elegant brushed silver exterior that is sure to draw a few gasps of admiration. It feels comfortable and solid in the hand and the control dial and supplementary print, playback, display and menu buttons on the back are easy to access and operate. By contrast, the power button on the top is unnecessarily small and recessed, and alongside it the slide switch for video, still and auto functions is stiff and awkward to activate.

On the plus side, the high resolution 3-inch LCD display is satisfyingly bright and clear thanks to its 461,000 pixels and, as well as the expected USB AV output on the side, there's also an HDMI port so that you can instantly play back the 1280 x 720 HD movies you can record at 30fps.

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Unlike its younger cousin, the IXUS 100 IS, which only sports a 3x optical zoom, the top of the range 12-megapixel 990 IS has a 5x optical zoom with a 6.6 - 33.0mm (35mm equivalent: 37 - 185mm) lens.

Naturally it has the same superior image stabilisation system to counteract blur, the same Face and Blink Detection as well as the same Scene Detection technology in Smart Auto mode that will search through all 18 shooting modes to decide which suits the occasion the best.

The range of shooting modes is similar, again, to the 100 IS, with the exception of two newcomers; Creative Light Effect and Zoom Blur (which zooms the lens while you take the picture for that action effect). Annoyingly, though, neither the 100 IS nor the 990 IS has a dedicated Sport mode which most photographers would regard as essential.

Despite that, the combination of the anti-blur systems, the high megapixel count, the proprietary i-Contrast feature that boosts contrast in tricky lighting conditions and the auto adjustments result in exceptionally good quality images.

Once captured, you can zoom into photos up to 10x and then play with the results using Canon's usual in-built MyColors package.

The real question is whether consumers will want to pay what is a hefty price tag for a top of the range compact whose main advantage over the bottom of the range model is a slightly greater zoom capacity.

There's no doubting that the Digital IXUS 990 IS is beautiful to look at and produces high quality images as well as 720p HD movies, yet with its limited manual possibilities it's unattractively higher priced than similar models from the competition.