Images below are all unmodified 100% crops from their respective cameras. ISO was set on the camera but exposure and white-balance were on automatic. The Canon Powershot A700 is compared against the Konica-Minolta Dimage A2 and Fuji Finepix F10. Neither of these cameras directly compete with the Canon A700, the KM A2 is a 2 1/2 year old prosumer camera, while the Fuji F10 is a recent ultra-compact point-and-shoot.
Konica-Minolta Dimage A2
Canon Powershot A700
Fuji Finepix F10
ISO 64 - 2.5s F3.5
ISO 80 - 1s F3.5
ISO 80 - 1/4s F5
ISO 100 - 2s F3.5
ISO 100 - 0.8s F3.5
ISO 100 - 1/4s F5
ISO 200 - 0.8s F3.5
ISO 200 - 1/3s F3.5
ISO 200 - 1/10s F5
ISO 400 - 1/2s F3.5
ISO 400 - 1/6s F3.5
ISO 400 - 1/20s F5
ISO 800 - 1/4s F3.5
ISO 800 - 1/10s F3.5
ISO 800 - 1/40s F5
The left column shows that the KM A2 has less noise at all ISO settings than the A700, but only by a small amount. This demonstrates that despite advancements in technology since the A2 was introduced, larger sensors are clearly advantageous at limiting image noise. The right column of crops show that the Fuji Finepix F10, despite being purely point-and-shoot, is significantly ahead of the curve when it comes to image noise. There are also visible differences in white-balance, with the A2 being the most accurate and the A700 being the least, under tungsten lighting at least.