Very good camera for the money

My wife bought me this camera for my birthday a few months ago, to replace my Nikon which had stopped working.  At first I wasn't too sure about it...I loved the Nikon because it took great quality pictures and allowed me a great deal of manual control of the settings.  However, after using the new Sony, I have to say I'm very pleased with it.  The clarity and quality of the pictures are right up there with what I've been used to with my Nikon.  I'm impressed with the quality of the Carl Zeiss lens - even the Macro capabilities are excellent, which is one of the things I loved about the Nikon.  Recently I used the macro settings to take some pictures to be included in a technical electronics manual for work, and the pictures turned out top notch.

The 10x zoom on the Sony is great to have, and image stabilization helps to provide crisp, clear images when using the zoom.  The flash performs very well even at extended ranges, better than my old camera in that respect  Battery life is very good also, which is a good given you have to use Sony's proprietary battery.
The memory that came with the camera isn't much, so purchasing a larger memory card is a must - but that's pretty standard with most cameras anyway.  Automatic point and shoot settings on this camera produce very good pictures, which my wife loves, and it's easy to use.  Manual settings are pretty good for a camera in this price range...although that's one area where I like my old Nikon better.  Still, the settings available allow me a lot of creativity in my picture taking.  Recovery time between pictures is pretty quick, and the auto-focus does a good job as well.  Overall, a very nice camera that's easy to use for point and shoot, yet has enough manual features to keep a more advanced hobbyist happy also.