It is indeed big, although that's partly because it's a childrens' slide and swing set for the garden.
The Panasonic Lumix range is good. I have a DMC - FZ7 which may be too big for what you want but features a 12x optical zoom and 7 megapixels. I think smaller versions are available, but I'm not sure how much they are.
That looks pretty good to me. I'm very impressed with my FZ7 and I often use it instead of my Nikon SLR if I want something small and lightweight. That one looks to have a good zoom on it and a pretty insignificant shutter lag time. Very good for under £100.
I like Canon for ease of use - the latest have an even bigger screen at the back... have a look at some here.
I've got the Fuji S9600 - and that's even bigger - basically SLR sized - but it's a fast camera and has far more features than I can use !
My experience on the matter is that i've got a casio exilim that i got off ebay which takes abslutely awesome quality pictures, but its battery life is absolutely shoot. I think the lithiom ion battery must have degraded over time 'cos it can't have been this poor when it was new, it only seems to last about 20 pics!
That's the problem with camera specific batteries - they do fail eventually, and can be a bit pricey to replace. I've stuck with AA battery powered cameras - as the batteries degrade, you can bin them and replace cheaply. My Fuji lasted 2 weeks, and 2 GB of pics (50% with flash) and video on one set of AA's
Its big because of what it is.... I bought the s9600 several years ago as I wanted the advantages of an SLR format - the extra weigh and bulk are woerh it for an adaptability that you get over a compact digital.
Don't underestimate the importance of speed. The last camera we had was so slow that moving objects can be out of shot before the picture has been taken! Sadly, many cameras are still like that today. We've got a Ricoh Caplio which is both fast (it was the joint fastest on a Gadget show test a few years ago) and is great on batteries. It runs off two AA batteries but can take a Li one. We assumed we'd need to buy a Li battery, based on the appalling battery life on the last camera, but it's been so good we've not bothered. A set of normal AA's works great!
