What's the best small digital camera for my needs?

Question

I really want these in this camera:

* Under $150

* Less than .9 thick (about .8 is average, that's great :)

* 4X Optical Zoom or more (including during/before making a movie/video)

* 8 MP (mega pixels) or higher (7 MP is ok, not lower!)

* Easy place to find it (preferably amazon.com = usually cheaper, or walmart or a conmon store!)

* Not hard to use but needs to have: image stabilization, movie at 30 fps or more, and more cool techy stuff in a small camera

* It needs to be stylish, like for a teen

Answer 1

You're going to have a problem meeting all of those specs for $150.  The closest I see is the Canon A590-IS.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Ca...

It's not exactly stylish, though, and it's quite a bit thicker than you want.

If you can do without the "IS," maybe the Canon SD750 is okay.  It's more money, though.  It sells in many places for $170-180.  It's very stylish and you can get it in a lot of places locally or on-line.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Ca...

Don't be tricked by any camera in this price range that says it has image stabilization (other than the one I mentioned) without investigating.  Most will have something that they call "electronic image stabilization" or something similar.  All that does is boost the ISO by one EV value to force a faster shutter speed.  The SD750 DOES this in the "Hi ISO" position, but since Canon offers REAL image stabilization in many of their cameras, they do not stoop low enough to call this ISO boost image stabilization.