Fujifilm FinePix F402

Opinion: I am a user in Taiwan
I got it for US$350, an extra 64M XD card for US$40

Body: Well made aluminum body, very compact, fits any pocket. feels slightly heavy but quit sturdy when shooting.

LCD: only 96% coverage, very bright and sharp, colors shown on LCD even more vivid than the photo taken.

Start time: 1.8s
Focus lag: 0.5s---very fast in well illuminated situation, but under dim light-- nothing is focused.
Shoot to shoot intervals: about 2s
It's a fast performer

Features: nothing special compare to a Cannon. 4M pixels simulation usable.

Image quality: Feels more natrual than past Fujis with Super CCD2, but still a bit too saturated---good for viewing on computers but difficult to edit. Very smooth skin tones. Pictures not very clean, noice found even at iso200.

Ease of use: Fast switching from movie to playback to record---better than most compacts. It lacks one touch exposure compensation like the one on Dimage X.

It's too expensive compared to Dimage X. The X has 3X optical zoom and costs US$315 here. I chose 402 only because X can't keep flash setting-- every time I turn it on it always resets.

Opinion: I take outdoor pictures almost exclusively. I find that the superb ease of
use, quick picture speed under all but the most dim light conditions, auto
lens cover when camera is off, and balanced, easily edited pictures
show this camera to have remarkable utility for such an ultracompact
design.

It does lack zoom and tripod compatibility, and the 4 megapixel is
interpolated. However, I find the 4 megapixel fine setting to produce
much better shots than several other more expensive true 3 megapixel
cameras.

Opinion: A gift for my son; very nice toy: easy to use and very small to take.
Good for macros, very fast and precise autofocus.
150 shot with a battery charge.
Good at 200 iso; in particular situation (tree, leaves, macros) good also at 1600 (1mp).

Samples:

Six shots (at the end of this page; later in a dedicated gallery):

http://digilander.libero.it/xpan/index.html

Opinion: just understand what you are going to buy: a really well built camera
with a very good design, small and light enough to be carried along
everyday. simple to use, quick on startup and image storage. easy to
handle, in spite of such thin body (better than minolta x series).
image quality is average, pleasent colors and excellent macro mode,
but poor detail in landscape shoots, flash well balanced, but too weak.
almost no chance of getting acceptable quality in night shoots,
because of poor sensibility, large amount of noise, limited exposure
time and no attachment for tripods (but i wonder who will actually buy
a 140 grams camera thinking of carring around a tripod).
white balance is often imprecise, optical viewfinder poorly designed and
too much imprecise, tft screen bright and well protected, but not
usable in bright light.
i think the 2meg resolution is enough (no worth of using the 4meg
interpolated setting) for a camera of this kind, not intended for large
prints or pro quality images. it's just a wonderful mean for getting visual
memos in everyday life, a bit overpriced, but really elegant, practical
and robust.
menus are intuitive (and it couldn't be different, with so few options
to arrange) but require too many key pressing for getting to the
desired option (dedicated keys for white balance or exposure
compensation would be a significative improvement).
battery life is more than sufficient, especially considering the quick
recharging time (about 2 h)
bottom line: i'm satisfied with my 402, i've chosen it for replacing my
olympus mju II with its wonderful 35mm 2.8. image quality is obviously
not comparable, but this new fuji is even more portable (and this
means much more useful, to me) and i can shoot a lot without thinking
of film costs and time to bring the fil to the development lab.
if you need a real compact camera (not a small brick like the canon
digital ixus) get something actually small, simple and quick to use.
with such small bodies additional features are often unusable (just think
of manual fucusing by keys!). if you're looking for image quality (i've
been a professional photografer) look somewhere else and be prepared
to spend a lo of money