Pros: A decent wide-angle lens: For most family happy snaps the problem is getting everyone into the shot. It's actually not a bad lens; casual shots with mine show much less linear distortion than I'd have expected at the price (very mild barrel, evident mostly in straight lines near the edges of the frame). There may be some internal processing to straighten things up. 140mm at the long end is about as long as I can hand-hold with such a small camera - I've never seen the point of super-long lenses on tiny cameras. Takes AA batteries: Common as muck. Battery life is very good even with cheapo alkalines. Use rechargeables to save money and the environment. Scene modes aren't horrible: Within the camera's limitations they work pretty well; the portrait mode is super-aggressive, though, like shooting through a fishnet filter. Decent grip and operational controls: It's easy to hold and fairly easy to use one-handed. Fast turn-on & shoot. Grid screen. Excellent build quality.

Cons: Viewscreen can be hard to see in bright sunlight. Of course, I'm one of those who bemoan the lack of an optical viewfinder, and I'm nearsighted to boot. But some screens are better than others outdoors, and this one falls on the low end of acceptable. Scene modes lock out exposure compensation: So you can't fine-tune the modes to fit the situation.

Overall Review: The advantages to getting a snapshooter that takes AA batteries cannot be overstated. A friend got a camera with a proprietary rechargeable battery and it didn't last a weekend car-camping trip. This camera was just as heavily used, but was still on its first set of alkaline AAs. Even if they had run out, there were plenty of other AAs around (flashlights, lanterns, etc.). 14 megapixels is way overkill on a small sensor. About 10 is all you need, and 6-7 would be even better. As far as focal lengths, the only thing I'd like better than a 28-140 would be a 24-105 with a bit more speed. The zoom seems to have about 13 steps. I consistently get more increments going tele-to-wide (12-13) than I get going wide-to-tele (10-11). Don't use the little viewscreen to evaluate linear distortion - the screen shows tons more than the image will.

Pros: I have this camera in silver, and it's an awesome casual snapshooter. (You can see my review under the silver model.) I got the second one in blue so I could tell the two apart. Huge advantages include the AA batteries and the lens that starts at 28mm. In addition, I've found operation to be fairly quick, even though it's all menu-based.

Cons: Note that the silver one worked great right out of the box and continues to hold up well. The blue one I ordered, though, was a completely different story. First the package was misdirected (something I watched in amazement via the online tracking) and when it arrived, late and rather worse for the wear, what I received was an empty box in a taped-up envelope. Curious, eh? Newegg replaced that one fairly quickly, and within weeks the replacement camera developed a problem in which it self-drains batteries, regardless of battery type or battery type setting. Now it can drain a set of brand-new lithium AAs in hours. It's as if the battery drain feature (there is one, for conditioning batteries) is locked on. Newegg won't RMA this one because it's now out of the return period, so I guess I have to see what Fuji says. So, for the refurbs, I'm 1 for 1 on the silver and 0 for 2 on the blue. Maybe it's a blue camera thing; that's just not a natural color for a camera