As someone once said, the best camera is the one you have with you whenever you want it. This small, very powerful little camera meets these requirements well; This is a very convenient size for a purse, pocket or belt. I take my camera with me everywhere and I often use it as a kind of "visual notepad" for example to photograph things that need fixing or repairing around the house or yard. The 8x lens is great, the controls are simple and accessible. After using this camera for 2 or 3 days, I bought it for my wife and was able to show her the basics of using it in about 2 minutes. It has an auto-adjust feature that works for about 95% of the shots you take, or you can use overrides to take control. The image stabilization is very good. I haven't experimented with videos yet. Transferring photo files to my Macbook Pro's iPhoto program via USB-2 is very fast. In general, there are very few issues with this camera. 8x is probably the maximum lens range that makes sense for a small pocket camera - high magnification isn't very practical on cameras this size as it introduces distortion.
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