I have owned Canon and Olympus digital cameras and was after something small and light for work ( i work on a construction site) . I looked at panasonic lumix and the reviews of the lumix and the sony were about the same. The over-riding factor was that the sony was just a little smaller (thinner) so it would fit in trouser pocket during summer.
The type of photos i would normally take are close-ups and also panaromic photos. The quality of them was not the ove-iding factor. The camera had to be robust enough to still work in case i dropped it which had happened in the past.
I chose the Sony and i can say that i have not been dissapointed. Yes i have dropped and banged it and i it still works fine. Not sure a cheaper brand would of been so forgiving.
The image quality is more than acceptableand the zoom is just about powerful enough to get enough detail when taking pictures of building 20m plus away.
I use a sdhc card and the standard def images are just fine.
The large screen is perfectly clear and the controls are easy enough to scroll through with 5 mins slf-tuition. No more or less complicated than canon or olympus
I am more than happy with the purchase and can see that i wil be using it for another coupl of years atleast