Whatever the improvements, though, it feels like they've been a long time coming and don't add up to much. We've got so used to each new SLR bringing a technological breakthrough, it's something of a let-down to see one that's really rather ordinary. A 10-megapixel dSLR is hardly news. It's like those packets in supermarkets that say "new and improved"when you know that what they really mean is that they've found a cheaper way to make it.
And it does feel cheaper. Every control works perfectly, every panel is rock-solid, but there is a bare and distinctly plasticky feel to this camera.
While Canon's fitted a very welcome image stabiliser to that kit lens, the optics themselves appear unchanged. It's compact, it has a sweet zoom action and the AF is fast and quiet, but the 18-55mm kit zoom has never been the sharpest. It's fine in the centre of the frame, but the edge definition is pretty weak.
The fact is the EOS 1000D is certainly fine to use, but the pictures are average. Canon's in-camera JPEG processing produces good coarse detail, but seems to gloss over some of the finer, textural image information. To get the best results you're better off shooting raw files and processing them with the bundled Digital Photo Pro application.