While image quality isn't the FX33's strong point, it still produces perfectly fine small prints, and thus its novice-friendly feature set and speedy operation makes it a good choice for those after a happy snap camera.

It's small, stylish and takes some great shots, but some layout problems can make it quite irritating to use.

This beautiful looking camera produces equally beautiful pictures.

Another home run for Canon, while the PowerShot A720 IS isn't perfect it is pretty close and it's combination of sharp, vibrant pictures, speedy operation and manual shooting modes is sure to please a variety of consumers.

Nikon's S700 isn't an incredible compact camera, but it does the job combining good pictures with a reasonable feature set, which will be fine for most consumers.

The PowerShot SX100 is a solid ultra-zoom advanced camera. While there are bigger lenses on the market, the 10x optical zoom here means the unit still fits comfortably in a pocket and the images, while a little noisy, are good at low ISO sensitivities.

If you're after an enthusiast camera but don't yet want to venture into the land of SLRs, or just need a backup for your main camera, Canon's PowerShot G9 is a great choice. While there are a few minor issues for the most part, it captures brilliant shots and the feature set and build quality are sure to keep all but the most demanding professional satisfied.

Nikon's CoolPix S51c offers a good option if you want to quickly and easily share photos with family and friends, however image quality aficionados maybe a little put off by the noise and slightly soft look of the shots.

Lots of manual controls and great image quality are offset by the C-55's sluggish response time.

While it isn't the best ultra zoom on the market, Kodak's EasyShare Z812IS is a good all around package combining a ton of features with solid image quality and a big zoom. The high-definition video recording in particular will appeal to some users.

If you want a carry-around camera capable of handling a wide range of tasks, including good-quality video, the S2IS is well worth a look.

Samsung's L201 is fairly solid overall but is let down by its horribly over-sharpened pictures. For small prints it's fine, but at larger magnifications this really becomes an issue.