I don't have either the canon or the sony - and I love my digital camera.  Did you play with it for a while?  Like all the features? Does it fit well?  Go with what you love. If you don't you will get home with another one and say, gosh, I wish I had bought ..... 

Thanks for the advice, I worried about coming home with a canon and thinking "ehhhh".  But I did find one canon online that I do like better than the ones that were part of the "special" my husband has.  And it' price is much lower!  BUT then again, today I took pics with my HP and they mostly came out great... I'm still debating.  Perhaps since none of the cameras are "calling to me", I'll wait a while longer. 

Arg, it's so hard being practical :)  But it would be nic to save the money til next year and probably get an even better one! 

Sony is a wonderful brand name! My husband is an amateur sorta professional photographer and he has a two Canons. Real high end ones. I have a Nikon CoolPix which isn't anywhere near as good as I expected and a Kodak EasyShare which is better than expected. I bought the CoolPix because it looked so cool and fun but the quality is blahh. I would go with what you feel is best. I'm not a photographer but I really think it matters more when you're talking high end cameras rather than the lower end ones. Like I said, Sony makes quality stuff! Maybe you can buy it and return it of you don't like it.They probably have a return policy, right?

I have a Casio and it was great. It's time for a new one. I tend to go with the reviews but $100 is a lot of money. You'll probably get what you need if you go with your gut. Jo

I have a Sony and I love it.  We get very good pictures out of it and it has good options.. half of which I have no idea what they are but that's another story.  My SIL has a Cannon she uses for her Photography business and she loves that as well.  Short and sweet... listen to Patty and go with your instinct.

Thanks Lilsquibb :)  I found another person that has a Sony too and loves it.  But I've since decided to hold off on camera buying for a little longer.  All the cameras in the price I'm willing to spend have the same zoom as mine already has, so I didn't see the point in switching.  I'm going to reevaluate in a couple months - unless a REALLY good deal comes my way :)

Sounds like a wise plan.  Overall, it is helpful to know what others think re an item, but think when it is decision time--one must consider the features that YOU like, as it will be you using it.

The one thing that was odd about the canon's was the menus for some of them seemed very outdated.  I don't know what it was but they just seemed like menus you'd find on an 80s computer :-D  I guess looks and style can make a big difference when it comes to my impression.  B/c of these weird menus, I felt like I was using an outdated camera!

Anyway, I bet if I asked anyone at that store what they think of my HP camera, they'd say it stinks b/c it's not a canon - so what do they know b/c I really like my camera (most of the time)

I have the Kodak easyshare which came highly recommended by a bunch of people.    I'm liking it - takes great pictures, easy to use, and easy to load onto the computer.   The battery life is good.  I purchased the charger port separately and love it.

I had a Fuji battery eater prior to this one - I spent a fortune in batteries.   Pics were okish, but the Kodak is much better.

I'm not a fan of Kodak.  I've used a few brand new kodak cameras and had various issues with them.  So that is one brand I'm staying away from.  Really for me it comes down to Canon, Sony or Olympic? whatever that last one is! 

I only use cameras with rechargeable batteries too.  Regular AA or AAA batteries have no place in digital cameras nowadays.

I only buy Canon's.  I love them.  Easy to use, trusted brand, reasonably priced.

The Best Buy that I buy from always discourages from Sony.  They don't have a certain lens feature (I have no idea what it's called) which makes it take pictures at a lesser quality.  Something with a "crystal" in it's name??

I dislike Kodak.  Every camera that I have seen...I always ask to check out friends and families cameras, they seemed cheaply made and my Canon pictures had a better quality.

Good luck!

Talking with my hubby, who used to sell electronics he obviously is in favor of the Canon.  That being said Sony has a good product... the biggest thing to think about with those though is the power.  Having the lithium batteries is good and bad.  They are rechargable yes... the power cord does not come included most times and it is not universal as many others are.

The other thing with the Canon is thinking about the manufacturing focus of each company... Canon primarily makes Cameras, and related products as well as printers.  Sony is jack of all trades in electronics which means master of none.

He states that the Canon takes more time to get used to, hence why you may not like it right off.

Good points lilsquibb.  That is a good reason to look closer at Canon b/c they do focus on cameras mostly.  I just thought their prices were high compared to the other brands and they were offering the same basic features. 

I gotta say that I really like my HP and if HP hadn't stopped making cameras I would buy another HP!  I think they did a real good job with my camera and assume it's because they also specialize in printers so they knew how to make good pics to print!  My decision would have been simple if HP still made cameras b/c I already got batteries, accessories and other things that would most likely have worked for it.  Oh well!

So when I do look into cameras (which I've decided to put off for a bit) I will research canons more.  But I do think I need to spend more time with them!  The only thing is a lot of times in the store I feel rushed as if the person wants me to decide right away "do you like it"?  I also wish they had some basic instructions next to the test cameras so I could see how easy it was to use the various features.  Knowing it has 100 features means nothing if I can't figure out how to use them.  I might have to visit a few different stores in order to spend proper time with the cameras :)

Oh and I would LOVE to know why so many cameras DON'T have panorama or burst features.  Mine has both and I can't believe that these newer and better cameras DON'T have it (except the most pricy ones).  I LOVE Panorama, it's one of my fav features on vacation.

It seems they keep improving the zoom and the megapixels.  While I would love a better zoom, I think the megapixels can stop at 12!  Put it this way, I have my camera set to 6 MP and I can't always get those to upload to sites or email to friends b/c they are too big. Imagine if I took pics in 12!  And besides, 95% of the time I won't be printing anything bigger than a 5x7.  So perhaps manufacturers need to stop adding megapixels to cameras and instead go back to adding features.

And as I wrote ALLL of this... canon ads are showing below trying to drag me in :-D  I'm so tempted but going to try to hold off for at least a few more months until I decide what I really want or if I even need a new camera.