Casio EX alternative

[soursquintsun]

I've had my heart set on a Casio ExZ600 for some time now. I'm pretty anxious to buy, but now I think i'd like to explore Canon, Sony, possibly PanasonicL since I've heard good things about those guys lately. Here's my criteria:

*6+mgpix- great images
*very fast shot recovery**don't want to have to hold poses or miss shots
*movie- decent quality. i'm a student, i have a pretty fast-paced life and like to capture some of it
*manual features(especially focus)- i'm a photo "enthusiast"
*atleast 3x optical zoom(the more the better)
*possibly an antishake feature- i've been seeing cases of blurred shots when the flash is off on certain cameras
*around $200(maybe a little more after memory card and such)

The Z600 fit most of these, but my main concern is that I've heard some unfortunate things about image quality. However, I only hear positives about image quality in Canons. Though the Casio is slim and sexy, I can easy up on ultracompactness- it just must be reasonable for me to take everywhere, so compact might be okay plus that'll save money.

Also, can anyone recommend a place to buy online. Definetely want a good warranty. Is ebay okay?

Peace & thanks

[fishycomics]

I am in the same scenerio, and waiting to oneday buy a casio, kodack or canon, but holding out. I would go into a store any day over an ebay Purchase of a maj camera purchase I conciderebay a yard sale

but yes you can gt one brand new with it opened. to me that is USED

[mweb]

I have heardnothing negative about Casio Z series devices, sure, on balance the Canon models produce slightly better images, but at the cost of being much larger/heavier and costing significantly more for an equivolent model.