I always struggle when trying to buy a digital camera. There is such a large range to choose from and how do you choose what is best? What does mega pixel mean anyway? The Sony Cyber shot is ideal. It is small and compact so perfect for taking on holiday with you, or putting in your pocket for a night out. It has a good optical zoom by Carl Zeiss, which I think goes to 4x, which means you can get good quality pictures even when you zoom in. There is also a digital zoom which enlarges the picture but you lose picture quality. It is easy to use and it is very reliable. The screen on the back is large, about two inches, enough for a good view of the photos you have taken. The flash also works well and it is very easy to adjust the setting of the camera so it works well in a dark room or out in the sun. It has a time delay setting as well. The quality of photos when viewed on a computer is extremely good for a camera of this nature however I find if I save the file to a computer and want to send them to family or friends the file size is too big - it can often be around 3mb per picture, and so they have to be reduced in size before I can send them. This is because the normal settings on the camera takes photos of 14 mega-pixels. You can change the settings if you plan on emailing the photos to someone, and reduce the quality so that they are smaller in size and so easier to email. However if you plan on printing photos I wouldn't recommend this as smaller file size equals less picture quality. The camera also has a video taking function which is useful if you plan on taking small clips, but the quality is a lot less than a video camera, with poor sound quality and the picture can be jumpy. Overall the camera is a useful all rounder.