SX110
I bought a new camera this morning. David had been asking (well, begging) for a camera of his own for over a year, and we agreed to get him one for the holidays this year. My mother got him this abhorrent, crappy kids digital camera that took really bad 640x480 pictures almost 2 years ago. The thing didn't even behave like a USB mass storage device (for the 32 pictures that it held), so I had to rig up this kludgy vmware WINXP instance just to get the pictures off of it. Anyway, the original plan was to get him a low end 'adult' digital camera, but while on the recent Death Valley trip, I realized that our camera somehow got a flick of dust inside the lens, resulting in a tiny grayish spot appearing on nearly every picture. There are lens cleaning kits which theoretically work, but I'm deathly afraid of taking the camera apart, as I might not be able to get it back together again, and sending it away to get it cleaned will likely cost more than the camera is now worth. When we purchased it new, roughly 2 years ago, this Panasonic DMC-LZ2 cost about \$220, but its definitely showing its age now. While its done its job ok, I've been increasingly annoyed by its lack of manual function adjustment (I can't set the shutter speed, or the focus, or anything really), and the lack of a viewfinder wouldn't be a big deal if the digital display wasn't so dim & small. So we decided that we'd just give David this camera, since 90% of his pictures are of his hands, the wall, or the cat's butt, a tiny gray spot is going to be the least of the problem. We'd just get a new camera to replace it.
After doing some research, we decided to purchase the Canon SX110 IS. Its a huge step up in terms of features (10x optical zoom vs. 6x, 9MP vs. 5MP, etc), and it has all the manual adjustment features that I've been craving so I can finally take night pictures or get good shots of waterfalls, etc. Newegg had it on sale for \$225 with free shipping, so I should hopefully get it by the end of the week.