Thin, Not Too Rich: Casio Exilim EX-Z75
Who? Stylish snapshooters shopping for a pocketable. What? Casio Exilim EX-Z75. Why? You usually pay a premium for svelteness. But this one puts the price on a spa diet, while delivering a fat menu of 7.2MP capture, VGA-res movies at 30 fps with sound, audio clips for still images, rechargeable Li-ion battery, 2.6-inch wide-screen LCD, and the usual feast of Casio scene modes: Candlelight portrait, Autumn leaves, Soft Flowing water, Retro, ID Photo, Business Card, eBay…you get the idea. And it comes in four colors, so you can accessorize accordingly. It weighs less than 5 ounces, and it's about ¾-inch thick. Lots of cameras like this cost around $300. Now! $168, street.
Big-Screen Star: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50
Who? Compact-cam shooters looking beyond good looks. What? Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50. Why? While plenty of cameras have 3-inch LCD monitors these days, the FX50's just seems clearer and brighter to us. And while truckloads of compacts have optical image stabilization of one sort or another, Panasonic was a pioneer here with its lens-based Mega O.I.S. -- and it's one of the most effective systems out there. The focal length, 28-100mm equivalent, is just right, and the noise suppression of the latest Venus III processing engines is greatly improved over that of older models. (Yes, you'll get noise at ISO 3200 -- though you still get the full 7.2MP resolution.) Now! $300, street.
Little Black Dress: Samsung NV11
Who? Point-and-shooters who aren't too cool to care. What? Samsung NV11. Why? The NV11 is such a sexy little thang, you might overlook that it's a technological tour de force. A rundown: 10.1MP capture, 38-190mm equivalent f/2.8-4.4 Schneider 5X zoom, 2.7-inch LCD monitor, video with in-camera editing capability, face recognition (for both autofocus and autoexposure), and subject modes that include text recognition, allowing the extraction of text from pictures of printed matter. The Smart Touch interface keeps it all sorted out with an array of button keys lining the LCD, with very legible control readouts appearing on the screen. Now! $275, street.
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