Don't waste your time Fonz, I don't know what's worse; a Magazine that is about as biased as it gets or for readers to accept that it's fully jusitifyable to compare a £500 camera with a £1100 one :-( when there are others of equal value available for "opinion".
The Slt is an evolution of the Slr, it is lighter, much quicker and cheaper, the fact that the A580 was'nt pitted against similar priced Canon and Nikon's speaks for itself, as does the fact that the A55, which canon users; is faster than the A580 and at half the price of the 7d represents far better value in these hard financial times, the A55 is almost twice as fast as the 60D.
The Slt's have been such a success that Sony looks like adopting the technology for good, with the A65 & A77 out or coming out very soon I have no doubt that the dinosaurs of yester year will jump on the band wagon (as they probably will do with a Nex clone), after all if you can get an Aps-c size 24mp camera capable of 12 fps imagine a full frame 1d with the same tech ?.
Regarding th A580's peers e.g 600d, this is why the mag had to pick the much more expensive Canon models;
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cam.../(brand2)/Sony
That and of course the very high burst rate that the 600d has, lol. Don't forget ther A580 is the cheaper and slower model.
Some A580/A55 Canon 60D bashing ;-)
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Pub...takes-the-lead