I did some research on this camera before buying it. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but who really uses all that extra stuff. He met all my expectations. Very good optical zoom, easy to use. It has great SD video and plenty of recording time on an 8GB or 16GB card. (I have 2 Trandscend 16GB cards.) Battery life is ok, I recommend a second battery as this camera does not support extended life batteries. The USB port lets you transfer videos to your computer for editing with Canon software. USB transfer is not as fast as FireWire, but you can start the transfer and walk away or do another task on the computer. I have also successfully tested file transfer using a third party SDHC card reader. The downside of using a card reader is the lack of the handy file system provided by the Canon SW. The Canon SW is not suitable to make the final film. I recommend Corel Video Studio Pro. I love this camera so much I convinced two others to buy it. This is great value.