Great Camera

I got this camera yesterday, so I cannot comment on the battery life, however, set up was easy. I previously owned a Fuji FinPix which had to be repaired once and finally broke after 18 months with a bad sensor. Aside from that, it was a good camera. Because I've owned a digital camera before, even though the options were in different places, they weren't difficult to figure out on the Canon. I set up my camera without cracking open the manual!! I took several low light, high light, and fast moving target pictures to test this camera and all came out great. All in all, this is a great little camera.

Here are some draw backs you should be aware of:

The LCD screen is NOT high resolution as described. The pictures look really bad and very graining on the screen. Don't worry though, they download to your computer with full resolution, without the grain, and very beautiful. As for me, I'd rather have the great technology features in actual pictures than on the screen; I can see how that balance makes this an affordable camera.

The battery door is very tricky to operate. I fear this door will break. I will be spending some quality working with the door to make sure I can master a smooth operation and not break it.

As for the battery, I see now that I was spoiled by my Fuji's rechargable battery and docking station. I never had to change the battery on my old camera. In comparison shopping, I didn't see any affordable cameras with this feature. I also have settled for not having that feature in exchange for a camera that will last longer than 1 year.

I had intended on not loading the included software on to my computer. I have enough software for pictures on my computer and I am frankly tired of these programs trying to take over when I simply open and view a picture. Not the case. Even though my computer (Windows Vista) detected the camera and auto installed the driver, the pictures would not download automatically. I had to install the software. The software is fine and works just like any other bundled software for digital cameras.