Rookie preferred, ease to use, lots of functions, SMALL

As a first time buyer, this cam probably suits my persona the best. Lightweight, tiny, sturdy, rechargable battery, and 3.2 megapix, this camera was a match made in heaven.

With easy touch pad menus, functionality took less than 2 weeks to learn. Although perhaps not made for the professional, the 2X zoom was enough for candid shots, parties, and still shots. I figure, if I can walk closer to it, that's good enough.

I researched a lot of other cameras, and this one had the compactness and quickness in shots. Some other camera's lagged too long in between shots, and if you're anything like me, you want to take shot after shot.

The LCD screen is more than adequate, IMO. I rarely use the eye hole, as the LCD is a joy to use.

Also, the rechargable battery and it's very compact charger make it even more easy to use. I was contemplating the a70, which supposed to have more functions, but it uses 4 double A aftermarket batteries and it was extremely heavy (I borrowed my friends for a week).

Lastly, this is supposed to be the smallest and lightest of all the canon compact cams, and boy, it sure feels like it.

Overall, this should be on the high end of party cams.

Oh, and the AVI (movie) option is great for candid shots. Though, the quality of the short films leaves much to be desired.

**************NOTE***********
One thing that was a bit amiss, was that I had to update the firmware on the camera. in this particular model, the firmware was not able to read non-canon memory cards. i used a sandisk 256 card for a while, and then i got some memory card errors.

The good thing is that after the update (manual) no more problems. And the update process is very fast (less than 5 minutes).

See:
http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/pssd100/pssd100_firmware-e.html