Previous to purchasing my L-18 I had owned a Sony Mavica that used floppy disks to store photos.  Then I started using my brother's L-3 and found it took great photos, used batteries I could purchase at any store, was lightweight and easy to carry in purse or pocket, and took really great movies as well.  The only thing was that the screen was a bit small on his L-3 and had no sound capability.

When looking to purchase my own digital camera, I started with the Sony family as I really wanted something I was familiar with already and the L-18 was the newest model available to me at the time.