A camera that's easy to use is all very well, but a bit of a waste if it can't also take good photos. Fortunately, the 750D excels on this front.

If you were to open the body up you'd find a new 24.2MP APS-C CMOS sensor inside, and it's (mostly) that which we should thank for the image quality.

Canon's entry-level cameras had been stuck at 18MP for years, starting way back with the 550D in 2010 and continuing until 2013's 700D. As a result, it was in danger of being left behind: Nikon had upped the game when it released the 24MP D3200 in 2012 and right now you could buy a 36MP compact system camera (the Sony A7r) or a 20MP smartphone (the Sony Xperia Z3+, for one).

All of this means that the jump to 24MP here is most welcome. No, megapixels aren't everything - it's what you do with them that counts - but the extra cropping potential over 18MP isn't to be sniffed at. And, as well as buying you plenty of photographic real estate, having that many megapixels helps dig up masses of detail in shots.

It also handles noise brilliantly, and for that, we also have the new DIGIC-6 processor to thank. You'll get superb images in good light at anything up to ISO 800; in fact, you can barely tell the difference between shots at ISO 100-400 and the step up to 800 is only noticeable if you're really looking. ISO 1600 and 3200 are also perfectly usable, and even shots at 6400 are acceptable.

As always with Canon, the colours are a little muted for our tastes, but you can easily ramp them up beforehand in the settings or afterwards in your photo editor of choice.

If we're being critical (and we probably should be, given that's our job) we've seen Nikon's equivalent DSLRs and the cream of the CSC crop produce slightly better results overall. Most of that is down to dynamic range - the amount of difference in the darks and lights the sensor can capture - but in real-world use it's unlikely to be an issue.

If you're the type to pixel-peep every photo, the 750D will probably lose out when compared to, for instance, the Nikon D5500 or Sony A6000. But then if you're that type of person you're probably better off spending a bit more money and buying a Nikon D750 or Sony A7 II.

Video is a bit of a mixed bag. On the up side the footage is crisp and you get continuous autofocus while shooting. Plus, if you're using one of Canon's STM lenses, it'll be virtually silent as you zoom and focus, which is handy. On the down side, Canon's still stuck in 2013 when it comes to framerates - you get full 1080p quality at 30fps but not 60fps, and there's no 4K at all.

We're not going to mark the 750D down for those failings though. This is an entry-level camera after all.