What an excellent device! Admittedly this is my first digital camera so I don't have much in the way of reference except seeing friends devices however this camera pleases in every way.
It is very simple if you want it to be just hit the on/off button and...in a very very short time... press the shutter for a quick snap; or for a custom shot twist the easy dial to another mode 'best shot' works well for me.
The video modes are excellent recording 640x480 video to the memory for the full length of space available - not just a short clip. It also has a record facility that starts recording 5 seconds before you hit the shutter! of course you have to have been looking the right direction - but this is great for action shots when you aren't sure when it going to kick off! My only gripe about the video is that it uses some odd version of the mp4 format that took me ages to find a codec for on the Mac (FFMPEGX was the solution) (software is provided in the box for Windoze machines).
Occasionally it gets turned on accidentaly and this can cause it to have a lens error where an obstruction prevents the lens moving out.
The screen is massive (just compare it to a 6 month old camera!) and unlike the Sony DSC-Ts/ Casio Z57 with similar size screens, also has the viewfinder.
If you forget your memory card (I left mine in the side of my laptop once) you've still got 8Mbs of onboard memory to play with so the day's not wasted - although at 7.2Megapixel the file size is about 2.2Mb so you'll need to go to 5/3/2/VGA modes to get a decent number of shots.
The battery life is excellent - I've never got close to running out yet and I went away for a two week trip and only used a third of the battery power. It is slightly annoying that you need the supplied cradle to charge the device and there is no USB port on it which could have been used for trickle charging or downloading photos. If you don't have the cradle you have to take the memory card out and use a card reader.
Overall, I am very impressed this this machine and if it continues to perform as well as it has over the last 6 weeks I can't see why I'd ever need another camera (the other positives are on Casio's website!).
regards
mrtotes
