Nikon Coolpix S620

Opinion: I wanted a compact digital as I found I wasn't using my Olympus 7070 as much as I should. So much easier to have a little P&S in your pocket than have a larger camera slung around your neck.
Secondly, I plan on taking the camera on an extended vacation, so it had to be small.

A Wide-Angle was a must, as was some degree of control over the camera, specifically ISO, White Balance & Exposure Compensation.

Chose the S620 as it has the features I wanted at a good price point. Checked out the Fuji F200EXR, but I wasn't that impressed with the build quality - it seemed to clunky to my hands. The Panasonic's were pretty good, but the stories of excessive noise put me off somewhat.

PROS:
- Good build quality
- Very compact
- Nice 2.7" LCD Screen
- ISO, Shutter & Aperture displayed when focusing
- Four AF Area modes including Manual & Face Priority
- Options for Metering, Continuous Shooting & Colors
- Sensible zoom lens (28-112mm), reasonably fast f2.7
- Well laid out intuitive controls
- Shutter lag not a problem
- Good image quality. Photos are sharp, acceptable noise
- "D-Lighting" edit works quite well in playback mode
- Considering file size of 12M photos camera records files quickly enough. Note: I bought a Patriot 8GB Class 6 SDHC card.
- Ability to record images at 12, 8, 5, 3MP resolutions

CONS:
- Annoyingly limited to 4:3 Aspect Ratio at all image resolutions except one
- No HD Movie capability
- No Full PASM control

Opinion: This cam takes really sharp pics for a nikon point and shoot. For once it actually beats a canon ixus in terms of image quality. The wide angle has quite decent control on the distortions. i'm impressed as compared even to a DSLR.

Opinion: I will bring this camera back to the store. I bought it to replace a stolen SD870/Ixus 860, but it can't match regarding colour. The colour quality of the S620 is disappointing, and in my opinion the colour quality of skin unacceptable. I used a Coolpix 3200 (3 mega pixels, my son has it now) which has, hands down, better image quality. Sometime more mega pixels is worse!

Pros:

The controls and menus are good, e.g. always direct control over exposure compensation.
Start up time is very, very short!

Used for 6 days: people, nature, textile crafts, snapshots.

Used before:
Coolpix 990 - Powershot A80 - Coolpix 3200 - Finepix 9000 - Ixus 860 / SD 870 - D50

Opinion: after five Canon SD ponit & shoot cameras, I decided to give Nikon a try. I didn't have too much expectations to begin with so not a much of disappointment per se.

S620 has good combination of features, lens, size, and price point. It is ok for very casual shootings such as travel.

There are several short comings that users should be aware:

(1) this is a VERY slow camera --- start up, focusing, and image processing. At times I couldn't use it at all because of the waiting. The slow focusing renders MANY blurry photos.

(2) images are VERY noisy in low light. I normally set ISO at "auto" and most night shoots came with ISO around 300/400. They are very soft and noise.

Conclusion, after this interesting 'adventure', I am switching back to Canon for P&S.