Canon A520 is a great buy.
It has many more features as compared to similarly priced models from Sony, Olympus, Nikon, Kodak, etc.
My favourite is the ‘scene’ mode, which automatically adjusts the light and colour, as per the environment in which I am clicking, hence giving me professional-looking photographs although I am a novice.
The viewing screen is small, but clear. The size makes it easy to carry in my purse. It is sturdy(has survived a few falls from my hands!)
The disadvantages are a small viewing screen, and low resolution(4MP). But they are not insurmountable drawbacks.
The advantages are the price, a wide range of functions for manual adjustment of shutter speed and aperture value, the option of glancing through the pics, 9 pics at a time, by zooming out in the view mode.
All in all, I’m quite happy with the purchase. A friend of mine has a Sony DSC camera at a similar price, and it is quite user friendly, but it can never compare with my canon in terms of the variety of functions and the shooting modes.