Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS Dark Gray 10.0 MP 2.5" 230K LCD 3X Optical Zoom Digital Camera

Pros: Digic 4 processor makes the lens auto focus FAST and the pictures come out great. Very pocket-able and easy to use. Put it on auto and it'll do everything for itself just fine. If you don't want to take a photography class to learn how to use your camera, or spend 1k-3K dollars on a DSLR camera, this is the best camera for you.

Cons: If you're looking for pro tools in a point and shoot this is not for you.

Other Thoughts: get combo deal 322303 with the Zeikos accessories. Comes with a higher capacity battery, a mini flexible tripod, and enough lcd screen cover to cover the screens of all your devices with LCD.

Pros: Great video, little delay for second shot, small, portable, fantastic!

Cons: None. Maybe a second battery for it would be helpful.

Pros: Coming from a Visual Arts student at PSU:
-Compact. Well, duh, but it's worth saying.
-The camera itself feels very tightly knit and sturdy. There are no flimsy dials, and I'm not afraid to put it in my pocket or toss it into my backpack.
-The picture quality is pretty nice as far as point n' shoots go. I'm currently using it to capture simple stock photos for graphic design projects and to document my work. Also excellent to bring to get-togethers or parties to document everything that's going on.
-Long battery life, at least from my experience. You can turn off the display with a built in button
-Piggybacking off of the display, it has a viewfinder, which is useful in sun or when trying to conserve battery.

Cons: -Bundled software is kind of annoying
-Auto-Mode is hit or miss. I find that if I need to really quickly take a picture without adjusting to my preferred settings on manual-mode, it's a nice backup button. However, I'd suggest against using it as your primary setting.
-The cover for the USB-in is a little awkward. Not flimsy as mentioned in the other review, but just a little tedious. The rest of the camera makes up for this inconvenience.

Other Thoughts: I bought this camera as a pre-req to buying a DSLR next year. I wanted to convenience of a point and shoot, but the quality to supplement a nice SLR until I got really needed one. Being a college student, I needed all this for as cheap as possible. After weighing my options, I decided to go with this camera, and I could not be any happier. While it's not terribly flashy, it has just enough features to supply me with the picture I want every time. Pick up a four gig SD card and a simple Case Logic case, and you're good to go.

Pros: Small form factor and compact design. Great price for having good picture-taking and video recording features. Sturdy, durable and well made. Screen is very bright, sharp and accurate. Takes good pics. Zoom works well, both regular and digital, till you zoom too close. audio pickup for video is good for such a small camera. Menus and options are easy to navigate when you get the hang of it. Auto focus by 1/2 button press is cool, as is the anti-shake feature and facial recognition features. Powers on quickly.

Cons: Video compression is HORRIBLE/non-existent!!! 1 minute of video takes up 100 MB!!! That's insanely inefficient! I've seen h.264 encoded video that was 25 minutes in length that didn't exceed 180 MB, so the video capture size is just terrible and inexcusable, and it's not even that good! I've also seen older, lower pixel count cameras take slightly better pics but you'll only notice if your a professional OR you've owned a better camera, and if your that picky, you're not going to be looking at this camera to begin with. Doesn't include any internal memory, so you MUST get a compatible card (I got 8 GB SDHC memory). Form factor's almost too small, and I have small hands as it is. No included power cable, so everything will be done off of battery power.

Other Thoughts: Cameras like this make me wish for the days before they included video recording as a feature. I used an ancient point-n-shoot 2.1 mega-pixel camera that had no video capture and took awesome pictures the likes of which I haven't seen in a point-n-shoot since. Today it's impossible to get a point-n-shoot that ditches video and focuses on good pictures, but I guess that's just reserved for the $1,000+ digital SLR's... For the price, you get a lot, but it doesn't excel at anything. Pics are good, but not great, and video, while handy, is just way too low quality and WAY WAY WAY too big in file size to be of any use to anyone unless you really need the video, in which case you'll have to recompile/compress it for it to be useful, and that'll just hurt the overall quality of the video. It's good if you plan on taking simple pictures and capturing video for reference or general puropse, but for anything serious, pass this thing up. Simply put, it's adequate to good, but nothing more.

Pros: VERY Fast Loading & Picture Taking
Clear Pictures
Small Size
Good Auto-Focus

Cons: Doesn't Come with ANY memory [no card nor built-in memory]

Pros: Small and easy to operate

Cons: I have always used Canon point and shoot products. The SD1200 didn't meet my expetation. The best quality setting is only "fine" so "super fine" was not available. Because of this limitation, the pictures quality is often reduced. Overall, I would not recommend this to others.

Pros: Small, feels solid, works great. great alternative to our larger camera

Cons: did not come with a memory card. I tried to look through the contents before ordering it but it didn't say otherwise. Our other cannon's came with atleast a 512Mb card, this one came with nothing, mostly a nuisance because we were unable to use at christmas.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend to anyone, I like that cannon camera's do not require special software to download pics.

Pros: Outstanding picture quality. The quality this camera offers rivals SLRs. A Small, lightweight camera. Fairly cheap. On a mac, it was as simple as plugging it in and transferring the pictures. Some software came with this camera, however it was not needed.

Cons: The battery life appears to be a little bit short. (260 shots)
source: manual

Other Thoughts: To me, the decision on which camera to buy came down to the SD1200 (N82E16830120329) and the SD780 IS (N82E16830120352). Although the SD780 IS has more MP, the SD1200's pictures appear to be sharper.

Pros: Compact, Lightweight, easy to use and Stylish.

Cons: Sometimes takes blurry pics if the flash is not on.

Other Thoughts: I've owned the camera for a few months now. I bought it mainly because of it's compact size, have used it at different indoor and outdoor events, and have been pleased with it. The camera sometimes takes blurry pics but if you put on the flash it usually takes care of that. For the price and size it's a pretty reliable little camera.

Pros: I have owned nothing but Canon since a Minolta gave me a prob years ago. I have the SD200, SD1100is, and the G9 not to mention the cheapo A410, A430. All are good for the price, except the G9 I feel is overpriced unless you absolutely need RAW photos instead of just JPEGs.

I DO NOT OWN THIS ONE, BUT AM GIVING AN ENDORSEMENT of Canon.

They all work with Windows XP excellently, just plug em in. Like someone said, they have no proprietory software to make money off of, so they let them work like they should.

And they do work like you think they should, what a refreshing experience. Rechargeable batteries are better, last longer and are lighter as well, plus cheaper to own over the long haul.

Cons: Only thing is you have to have sufficient light (average) in order for the video shooting to work well. It will be grainy if it is in a dim situation. Outdoors will be perfect, and even indoors with the lights on. Just grainy if it is hard to see with bare eyes. The picture is really good too with adequate lighting, bright and crisp movies.

Other Thoughts: I have had nothing but good from these Canons. I am sure this model will have good experiences, too.