I've had this little camera since December 2008, and I have to say it's been a great all-rounder!
I have to say the best feature about this camera is it's RAW shooting mode - very helpful if you need to make drastic exposure changes in post-production. I'd recommend buying a high speed memory card, as shooting in RAW mode can be very slow if you don't have the right card!
Battery life tends to be very good - I only usually need to recharge once ever 3-4 days with medium usage (~40 shots/day).
There is also a really handy feature of the manual focus mode, where a square in the centre of the screen shows a zoomed-in version of the live image.
One major downside is the way it deals with low-light. I don't think any of even the cheaper modern compacts would have such bad low-light capability (you might want to consider the newer models of this camera if this is a problem for you!). Sometimes even in daylight there will be noise in shots (at ISO80!), so you have to be really careful with lighting, or just develop a liking for the noisy look, like me!

All in all it's great if you want many of the features of a DSLR (e.g. full manual mode with ISO wheel) but without the bulk. Of course the downside to it's small form factor is the lack of interchangeable lens, but still it is a great introduction to semi-professional photography.