This camera is Amazing.

The zoom is incredible. 24x optical mean that unlike most digital cameras that claim a large zoom using digital zoom, you have opotcal resolution, so no clever stuff guessing what colour extra pixels should be. This means that your pictures are excellent quality instead of grainy right up to 24x.

The added digital zoom takes you even closer than the 24x but with reduced picture quality.

14MP is more than enough to give high resolution (and can mean smaller memory cards fill up quickly). At full quality you can print poster sized pictures in high quality.

The Olympus SZ-14 is much smaller than previous models with such big zooms and squeezes into a pocket well (assuming you dont wear skin tight hipster trousers!)

Olympus is often my preference for a camera due to the software on the camera. It gives a range of useful pre-set functions....mostly I use the sunset one for some impressive pictures and the night time settings for clarity in the evenings. The olympus software takes some getting used to and I have never figured out how to combine photos for a panoramic picture which the camera claims it can do.

Olympus cameras in my experience are always well built. I have owned a large range and would always put Olympus at the top No different in this case.