Had read a lot of reviews and finally narrowed down my choice to the S1. There are lot of digicams which have their pros and cons. There is no perfect camera. You just have to know what you need from the camera.
The 10 X optical zoom lens with the image stabliser was the selling point. The IS is a must have feature on a long zoom camera. It really cuts down blurry pics by compensating for shaky hands at full zoom or shooting low light pics
And the fact that it lets you keep the Aperture open at 3.1 at full zoom lets you click some decent shallow DOF pics (where the object or person is in focus and the background is blurred)
2 examples:
https://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anshuman_bhardwaj/detail?.dir=1c1c&.dnm=b865.jpg&.src=ph
https://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anshuman_bhardwaj/detail?.dir=1c1c&.dnm=ed87.jpg&.src=ph
You cannot get this effect in a regular 3X optical zoom digicam. the only other option would be a Digital SLR.
The battery life is great only if you are using Nimh Rechargeable batteries. I use 2400 MAH AA baterries. I can go for a whole day cliking pictures till they run out. If you are in a fix you can just get some regular Duracell batteries to make you through the day. But forget about using nomal everready cells. I tried using a fresh pack of 4 and they lasted for just 10 minutes!! so get a extra pair for Nimh batteries. Or only high capacity duracell or eneregiser will do.
The movie mode is the best in all the present digicams but I was not that impressed. Low light vidoes have a little noise. And even with a 256 mb card you can get a 3 minute at the highest quality. You can use a lower mode and a slower framerate to increase the movie length though. The movie size can be reduced by using windows media encoder which wont reduce the quality. But if video is what you are primariy looking at then go for a mini dv camcorder from sony or canon.
This camera uses CF cards which are economical. a 128 mb size card would be half the price of a 128 mb sony memory stic or a xd card
The camera has a nice grip and lets you get good shots. The other digicams were too small and are awkward to hold. the camera is moderately sized but dont expect to put it in your pocket. I carry mine in a waistbelt pouch
I love my S1 and I think I made a excellent decision.
Main advantages.
Full manual features for aperture, shutter speed, flash, focus, white balance. (I never use the preset modes. the manual mode is a must if u try it)
Couple of drawbacks which I saw:
The camera has problems getting a focus lock in low light like in a dimly lit pub.(you might have to use manual focus)
Also in such dark situations the lcd is too dark to see if the focus is correct or not. You would just have to point the camera in the direction and review it after the pic has been taken.
But the day light pics turn out great.
Regards
anshuman