The Fuji Finepix F30 is the best all-round camera I have ever owned. It is limited a little by the 3x optical zoom, but this hasn't been too much of a problem in practice.

- I can't remember when I last charged it, holidays come and go, and not only do I never need to take a charger with me, but I often forget to charge it before the holiday - 580 shots battery life is not something you'll often see.
- It gives you 3200 ISO mode for low-light shooting. There is some noise, but the quality is pretty good.
- It's small, and properly pocket-sized
- 6.3 MPixels is plenty unless you plan to blow up your prints to poster size.
- It starts up really quick

It is now pretty cheap at about 150 us dollars. I don't think Fuji or anyone else will make another camera with these characteristics, because all the camera makers are now competing on pixel count, so they are compromising on the other things.

The only drawback is that it uses XD cards. I would prefer SD, but nothing's perfect....