DIGITAL CAMERAS - SMILE!!!

Buying a digital camera can seem really difficult - there are so many different brands, cameras, features and price points. And unless you're photographic pro, it can be tricky to narrow down your search. Here's selection of the best of what's available right now...

CANON DIGITAL IXUS 90 IS (photo here)
A small camera that crams a host of automatic and manual features into its modest dimensions - Face detection, image stabilising (that's the IS on its name), noise reduction, enhanced auto-focus for low-light shooting - and as a result it does take excellent pictures. There are 19 shooting modes too, and extensive video-shooting options.
Solid, chuncky design, 100mp, good battery life.

FUJIFILM FINEPIX S1000FD (photo here)
Impressively compact for a camera that follows the SLR shape for maximum comfort white shooting - the rubberised handgrip also contains four AA batteries. You get a whooping 12x optical zoom and a good balance between automatic and manual modes - we especially liked continuous focus for moving subjects, which lets you lock the focus on to a moving object and track its movement to get a sharper shot. It's a bit slow both on shutter delay and time between shots though.
Excellent zoom, continuous focus, manual settings.

CANON POWERSHOT A2000IS (photo here)
Canon replaced this best-seller recently with the 2100, featuring an improved image processor which speeds up things, but the older version is still a good buy - especially if you can find it at a discounted price. It looks good, a bold gunmetal and silver design. Easy-snapping features include 17 different shooting modes, among them an Easy Mode which lets the camera set itself up; Face detection (up to 35 faces per pic); and image stabilising technologies to compensates for movement of the camera or the subject; a good 6x zoom, and 20mp resolution.
10mp, 6x optical zoom, excellent battery life, fast shutter speed.

SONY CYBER-SHOT T77SI (photo here)
Just 15mm thin and available in five funky colours (silver, black, brown, green, pink) the T77 wins hands-down in the style stakes. It's also very easy to use, with 'anti-blink' on its face detection mode - won't take a shot if someone blinks - and Smile Shutter mode that automatically takes the pic when someone smiles. The T77 is also the world's slimmest camera with image stabilisation: 10.1mp, 4x optical zoom, wide 3 inches touchscreen-cum-viewer.
Stylish, easy to use, touch screen

CANON DIGITAL IXUS 980 IS (photo here)
A lot of camera for the size - 14.7mp, for a start, and if you're planning to do a lot of image manipulation afterwards you might need this level of resolution. There's also a 3.7x optical zoom, built-in image stabilizer, very good autofocus, the same Face Selt-timer as in the 870, and an optical viewfinder (though it's not especially accurate). It's speedy, tooL fast startup, not much delay between shots, decent shutter lag times.