BTW Remi and Iberg-

If you feel that the Casio Z-60 is a good alternative, I want to share with you that it might be easier to deal with the Z-120, which uses normal AA batteries and is about the same size or a bit smaller. Otherwise all of the other specs are just about identical.

As you can easily see from reading the Casio Talk over at http://www.dpreview. com, there have bee more than a few problems with Casio cameras. However, as I always say, the choice is entirely up to you.

MT

mtclimber wrote: In my experiance, people only complain when something goes wrong with there camera, ignoring the fact that 99.999% of the actual devices work perfectly well.

That opinion is based on my experiance in running the worlds 2nd biggest Mobile phone site, Mobile-review.com

mweb-

That is good input, thanks a lot. It is sort of the old squeaky wheel thing, and as a result our conclusion or conclusions may become somewhat distorted in the process.

MT

After lots of store visits & reading a ton of web site reviews, I finally bought the Kodak V603.

My group of cameras originally came from a consumer reports article which raised up these 4: Canon SD450, Casio EX-Z750, Kodak V550, Panasonic FX8. They're all compacts in the $250-$350 range. Several of them were updated in the stores with newer models; Canon SD600, Casio Z59, Kodak V603. For me shutter delay was a big issue. It was easily compared by checking the first shot, and the V603 did well. But important as well, was on the 2nd thru 4th photo (etc) were a concern (for me this is not burst mode, cause I am moving around and see shots to take a few seconds after I just took a shot). This seems to be a processor function and I use the camera this way at times and don't want the frustration of missed shots cause the camera is not ready. Basically some cameras aren't able to take 10 photos over the span of one minute. The ease of brightening the display was difficult to navigate to on many models, but easy on the V603. But finally the swaying factor was date stamping. Virtually all did not have this (DPOF is a function of the printer, but I don't print the photos)! When I send them to my processor (snapfish), they will have no idea on where to put the date stamp, what format, etc. I doubt they will change thier web interface anytime soon to include this functionality. It's a must have for our family photos. We are not professional photographers, we need this accurately marked.

Another factor was the 'big box store' wasn't willing to match or even better on-line prices. Fry'scould have got the sale, but were unwilling to save me more than $100 if they matched J&R and others, cause I bought an extra battery & 1G 150X memory. p.s. J&R is not a web only firm, but the manager said that didn't matter, they needed to be a local store

I appreciated all the salesmen's help & web reviewers & forum responders

iberg-

I am delighted to hear that you found your perfect camera. That is great! I also want to compliment you on going into a camera store and doing your own hand-on investigation. That is one test that always works well.

MT