Still the best point and shoot ever made, for my purposes....

Fish Chris wrote:

Hey jmcarp, thank you ! That SX 20 is bigger, and more expensive (twice what I paid for my A650IS......

However, it does in fact meet the criteria I listed. Cool.

Thanks again,
Fish

Current prices for new SX20's (if you can find one) are more than the original cost. There are well-known reasons for this price disparity for most older cameras that many consider "desirable" -- some valid and some seemingly arbitrary. If you're seriously interested in an SX20, you can probably pick up a used one since there are always owners of older superzooms who are upgrading to the latest and greatest.

As for the AA vs rechargeable battery thing, my feet are firmly planted in both camps, having cameras which use both types. The newer rechargeable L-ion batts have really great life, and the current chargers all work at either 115 or 240 volts for world travel. My biggest complaint with the rechargeable batteries is that there is little compatibility, even with one manufacturer's camera lines. This means having to buy multiple separate batteries for each camera in order to have backups -- and they ain't cheap, as we all know.

Meanwhile, I can switch AA's among my various AA-using cameras at will, and pick up backups at 99% of stores practically anywhere in the world. As I said in my previous post, I use lithium AA's almost exclusively because of their great life capacity. I used to use rechargeable AA's, but when my last set would no longer take a charge, I switched to the lithiums and haven't looked back.