Canon PowerShot A550

My search was for a reliable, used digital camera that had at least 6 megapixels and 4x optical zoom. First I consulted friends about their own digital cameras and I discovered an incredible consistency in the number of Canon PowerShot owners who were satisfied with their camera. With that knowledge in mind, I hit up Ebay. What I found there, was that I could get an older PowerShot in the 7 megapixel range for about $100-$200. The best deal I found was a Canon PowerShot A550 for about $100.

The Breakdown:
In terms of basic camera functions I am somewhat satisfied with this camera.
* Taking each photograph takes about 2 seconds which is a little slow for my taste. Also, as the batteries get low, pictures take longer as the camera waits for the flash to charge up.
* The autofocus does a good job, I haven't gotten a blurry picture yet when I was taking still photographs
* Batteries do not seem to last very long in this model. Even with highly rated rechargeable batteries made specifically for digital cameras, you can expect about 20 minutes of having the LCD on before the low battery notice appears. I would recommend having a few rotations of batteries available if you're going to use the camera regularly.
* The video capture was one of the surprisingly good features in this model. Not many digital cameras (in this price range) will record sound in addition to video, but the tiny microphone captures a good range of sound. You can set it at 30 or 15 frames per second, and get a maximum resolution of 640 X 480.
* The camera works well as a plug & play device on Ubuntu 7.10, if linux fans are curious about support.