Ricoh Caplio R3 Digital Camera

Pros: 7x zoom. Wide angle. Barely larger than cellphone. Good color, detail, battery life. Fast.
Cons: Blades protecting lens are flimsy. Need -0.3 exposure compensation.

Epinions does not allow me to embed images in reviews. This is rather sad for camera reviews, which really benefit from photos. Hence, I've also posted a photo-enhanced version of this review at the following link: ...

Pros: Full of unusual but useful features like wide angle and long zoom and macro.
Cons: Picture quality, LCD and movie resolution can be improved

Highlight:

Wide-angle lens are good for landscape, big structure, or large group in small room.

The 7.1X zoom extends the possibility of composing a nice shot from far away. The CCD-shifting anti-shake feature really helps at long zoom.

The macro mode can reveal extra detail that we don't normally notice.

Last but not least, all these unusual features are packed in 26mm body that you can carry all the time in your pocket. What good is your DSLR if it is available when you need it!

Wishful features:

If the f3.3 can be improved to f2.8 or ...
Picture noise control can be improved, especially for low light conditions.
LCD should be at 230K, rather than 115K
VGA movie is more desirable
Full manual operation...

PS:
The new Caplio R5 is due this fall, with 7.24M pixel CCD, 230K LCD, VGA movie, and an amazing autosize feature that can change to smaller picture at zoom higher than 7.1X without loosing picture quality. It is said the R5 can zoom to 34.1X optical for VGA size picture. That is equivalent to 900mm lens. What a nice feature!!