Giving this a bit of thought, the built in lens cover of the Canon SX130is was a plus - the Nikon's lens was unprotected, thus a minus (just found out that it does have a manual lens cover). I think size wise the Canon was a bit more "purseable" than the Nikon too, although the larger Nikon she really liked.
There were some higher end bridge cameras & chunker P&Ss, but really too many controls, and were running $300 to $400. She kept gravitating back to the Canon and Nikon as being the right size with out all the "knobs and buttons".
I have a LX3 that she liked, but the lens cover is manual and dangles, plus the mode selection knob on top is way too easy to turn, that it even changes on me.
We did go on somewhat of a shopping spree yesterday. Her old 30 year old 25" TV went out during a power failure, so she wanted a new TV. Picked up a 32" Sony flat panel that she loves. We just walked down in front of all the TVs, - the 42" were too large, until she saw a picture that was sharp, clear and with good color and that was the sale. Showed her that she can stick the SD card in the side (I need to pick up a USB cable and SD card reader for her) and "watch" her pictures. That she really liked. She does not want a PC, so she is just going to buy SD cards when she needs more "film". I ordered a 2 pack 4GB SD card for her last night off the web, for $11.
Just watched a set of video clips on both cameras. The Nikon has 4 axis stabilization and takes 10 images in quick succession, then selects the sharpest. The Canon has a more traditional 2D stabilization system. They both have a 1/2.23 sized sensor.
I think that the Canon A3K would work well, but she seemed to like the hand hold of the Nikon and could aim it across the store getting a steady image at 15x.
Just an interesting aside. In the store they had these plastic "Tee" assemblies that attached to the cameras that were corded to the display case. She was wondering if they sold something similar to the Tee to screw into the camera base to serve as a hand hold.
