Verdict

The EOS 500D is yet another milestone in Canon's success story in the popular consumer DSLR class. An excellent all-round camera for beginners but also for enthusiasts who are looking for a light-weight DSLR at a very fair price level.

The Canon EOS 500D features a very high resolution of 15.1 mega-pixel, movie functionality including full high definition recording, as well as high ISO up to 12.800 and a big 3.0” LCD with 920.00 dots. Great specs compared to the competitors in its class. That said take this bunch of specs with a grain of salt.
Canon put three more mega-pixel on almost the same senor size of its predecessor but it achieves only a marginally better resolution. Furthermore, the HD movie recording is only capable to providing 20 fps which is somewhat insufficient for judder free motion.
The ISO sensitivity can be set up to ISO 12.800 but that's really more a marketing gimmick than a feature because the sensor noise reaches disturbing levels from about ISO 1600 onwards. The big external display is one of the best that we have seen so far but it's still hard to use in sunny conditions and it's only "fixed" rather than articulated like on the Nikon D5000 or Sony Alpha 380.

Nevertheless, the EOS 500D is another recommendable masterpiece from Canon. However, Canon EOS 450D users don't really need to upgrade unless there's a critical need for the movie mode functionality.