Summary - so far

Well, I have had it for almost a week now and before that studied many photos and videos from others. What can I say? Although this is not a real review, if you look at all the posts I have done, you can get a fairly good idea on how the camera works and you can download many photos directly from camera (no editing in Photoshop or elsewhere) here and print them for your own review. My personal impressions would probably be something like:

Positive

• Small, slim, and well built
  
• Quick and snappy operations (one exception, flash recycle)
  
• IS - cannot say enough good things about IS in cameras, especially for video
  
• Adequate zoom range
  
• Fantastic macro ability
  
• HD video with good (mono) sound and H.264
  
• Ok ISO performance, especially considering it's 12Mpix and small sensor
  
• Good, balanced AUTO mode (one exception, the over exposure
  

Negative

• Tend to overexpose in AUTO and no way of dialing in compensation
  
• Do not re-adjust focus when taking videos
  
• Cannot use optical zoom in video mode (digital can be used)
  
• Somewhat slow lens
  
• HD video (and actually also 640x480) requires modern (2yr old max?) PC to playback without stuttering
  
• Flash cannot throttle back enough for use in macro (most times)
  
• Cannot do manual exposure compensation during video (and do intital)
  

I guess that's about it. Overall (if you have a new PC or good MAC) I think it is a great small camera. If you do not care about the size, then you might find others that are as good or better, but if size is important, then I am not so sure that there are better today.

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